


Into the Dark

by inumaru13



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, First fanfiction in a long time so forgive the crap, M/M, Mind Break, Psychological Trauma, Rape Recovery, Shizuo is so confused, So much angst, Sometimes confusing writing style, Torture, helpful Shizuo, hurt izaya, split personlities, stitched senses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2018-08-27 03:39:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8385760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inumaru13/pseuds/inumaru13
Summary: It was a day that started with a terrible feeling which lead to a terrible smell and ended in a terrible discovery. Of all the times the fortissimo of Ikkebukuro had yelled, shouted, and tried to kill a certain info-broker, he never thought he would see the day when he scrambled to pick up the pieces to keep his sworn enemy alive. It's been one year since he'd seen the annoying little bloodsucker but right now he didn't even know who he was looking at, talking to, or trying to touch without hurting. Because this person, didn't speak and looked at him with eyes so dead, it might as well have been a corpse.





	1. It smelled like shit

**Author's Note:**

> So hello. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Inumaru Higurashi and this is going to be the first fanfiction I have written and dared to post in nearly five years. I fell into this fandom on a whim after discovering that Durarara had a second season and now Shizaya/Izuo (I'm in no way a purist) has become my OTP. Seriously, those two need to bang (are totally banging) and just get it over with. I shall apologize in advance if the characters are a little OOC, or if there are spelling and grammar mistakes as this work is unbetaed and I write it while sitting in class bored out of my skull trying not to throw my table at my teacher. I hope you enjoy and I would love to hear all of your wonderful comments.

“Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill,” Shizuo muttered under his breath while grinding his teeth over his already fairly abused cigarette in his mouth. Everything about today had been rubbing him the wrong way. From the moment he woke up, he was irritated. The milk calmed him down enough to get out of his apartment without ripping the door off of its hinges and make his way to meet Tom without too much property damage along the way. Sitting down and waiting in the café had been able to cool him down long enough to say his usual grunted greeting at Tom. Tom who had sensed his mood, chose not to pry and simply gave him a hot chocolate as they made their way out and about for their today’s work rounds. The first few rounds went smoothly enough without too many excuses given, probably because one glance at the permanent scowl on his face was enough to make the clients piss themselves without any further persuasion. Two more later and Shizuo could feel his traitorous body itching to grab the nearest heavy object and swing it through the nearest property, most likely sending the client it was directed at with it. By the third and fourth…that just happened to be exactly what happened. By the fifth, Tom did his usual disappointed sigh, realizing that it was probably best to take a break and grab some lunch before more of the clients ended up being sent to the hospital rather than him being able to collect the money. 

“Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.” The cigarette wound up being bitten into shreds, sending the disgusting taste of processed cancer into his mouth, prompting him to quickly spit it out and smash it into the ashtray…and in doing so…smashed through the innocent fast food table. The resounding crash had all eyes of Ikkebukuro turning to stare at the beast and Tom…looking unflinchingly at the ruins and holding the remaining amount of his burger in his hands…luckily having survived the wreckage. Tom breathed out a sigh and decided…if he was really going to die…then today wasn’t that terrible of a day to do it.

“Oi Shizuo.” He began carefully, watching the heaving chest of his partner for any signs that a fist was going to come swinging his way. When there was no response in terms of action or speech, he decided it was relatively safe to continue. “Did something happen with Kasuka?”

A sharp twitch of the tall blonde’s eyebrow was enough to let Tom know that that was not it but if he pressed further…he’d end up having to pay for a new burger joint. 

“Well…you know if there is anything that is bothering you, I’m always here to talk.” Silence greeted the dread-locked man, but he was able to see a minute lessening in the tension of his partner’s shoulders and a relaxation in the tight grip of the fists attached. With everyone watching on bated breath, Shizuo heaved a few heavy breaths and forced his monstrous body back into a seated, fake relaxed position on the too small bench of the fast food facility. 

“I’m sorry Tom.” He finally replied, placing his chin in his hand as he glanced out the large pane of glass and into the bustling streets of Ikkebukuro. “You can take the table cost out of my next paycheck.”

Tom sighed a breath of relief. “That won’t be necessary. You just worried me for a bit. I haven’t seen you this wound up since the last time you and that info-broker went for two hours and he smashed you through your brother’s agency building.”

Shizuo’s brows twitched and Tom flinched when he heard the poor teeth in the man’s mouth grind and creak. Their associated lips drew back into the best imitation of a rabid feral dog Tom has ever seen on the face of a human. 

“That damn flea. If he ever shows his ugly presence back in this city I will make sure nothing is left of him except for a black smudge on the pavement.” Shizuo growled. “Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill.”

Tom sighed again and rubbed his forehead. “Come to think of it, he hasn’t been seen around here for over a year now.”

Shizuo froze and turned to look at Tom was slight surprise in his features. “Ah…come to think of it…has it really been that long?”

“Hah?” Tom laughed. 

“What’s so funny?” Shizuo floundered the last traces of his anger being erased instantly as he observed his senior’s strange behavior.

“You didn’t even realize how long it’s been since the last time you had such a large confrontation…I think that’s a good sign to say that peace has been sitting well with your body.” Tom smirked, finishing off his burger and leaning back to look out the window, back out into the bustling streets. “It has been rather peaceful and easy flowing recently. Even the jobs…for the most part have been able to come in without you having to pick up a street sign.”

“Yeah…I guess so.” Shizuo smiled lightly. Gathering the rest of the trash…and arranging the demolished table into a more manageable pile, the ex-bartender stood and walked out the door of the restaurant. Tom watched from his seat until he saw the tell-tale stream of smoke floating up into the air. It was time to continue with work. 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

All it knew was the darkness. It tells itself that this has to have been its fate from birth. It was born blind, mute and in agony. Every breath hurt. Every slight shiver that racked its body hurt. Every thought that now ran through its mind hurt. It heard the tell-tale signs of the heavy metal door of its birth place slam open. It felt those rough hands grab, pull, and hurt. It hurt. It felt the first hot rod stab into its body and begin to rip and churn up its insides. It felt the sharp pain of cool metal pieces pierce its shoulders, and the further fire that forced a silent scream when the two sensations combined. One stab into its inside and the twin fires burning into its shoulders, one after the other after the other, after the other until there was nothing more in its world than these two sensations. It didn’t know for how long this continued. Only that after the first flooded its insides with disgusting, warm, fluid, came another and another. It just laid there and felt. After all, it had been whispered into its ear so many times that it was nothing more than the purpose that it plays in this place of its birth. Blind, mute, disgusting, useless, nothing other than a pleasure dump, a play toy, a punching bag, and it learned to accept its place. Sometimes, even in the blindness, it would see a flash of yellow accompanied with unimaginable warmth. Not the type that burns its insides day after day after day, but the type that it clung to as it curled itself tight on the stone floor of its birthplace and pretended it could feel it flow throughout its disgusting being. Other times the warmth was accompanied with a yell and sharp laughter. It would then try to emulate the laughter, only to realize that it hurt too much to do. It was not meant for such things. 

But today…today…was it day…or was it night…it did not know. This time…it winced when the amount of thought that bounced through its head causing its…eyes…they were eyes right…yes they were eyes…to throb. Today, it felt, before it heard the metal door to its birthplace open. Along with the opening came a blast of wind and…it gasped, a sharp intake of breath through its nose. There was warmth…such blinding warmth. The warmth was the same as its dreams. But it was awake…it knew it was awake because in its dreams…it didn’t hurt and it could see…yes…see yellow. But the warmth wasn’t going away, it was coming closer…and so were footsteps. Footsteps were never good, even if these did not sound like the ones that it had become so used to coming and reducing it to nothing. It was dangerous to hope, it would not hope, it did not know hope. But the warmth felt so good that it couldn’t help but make a faint whimper. The footsteps stopped and turned. They were coming. They were coming, closer and closer and bringing that heavenly warmth with it. Then it was loud. It was so loud. Someone was shouting. Shouting was never good. Shouting meant that it was going to get hurt. Shouting meant that it might be in too much pain to even be able to see the yellow when it was finally able to “rest”. What had it done? What it done this time? Please…what had it done?

It realized that the voice had stopped shouting and was now…talking…it was talking right. The warmth still stayed. In fact, it was overwhelming. It felt its being breathing in the warmth. It must take as much as it could while it was here because it knew that such things were always taken away, always, always, always, always, always. The pain in its head halted that train of thought and then it was floating. The final piece was when he felt the warm on its shoulder shooting through its body. It felt so nice. 

“Izaya…”

With a final flash of yellow…it knew nothing.


	2. Birthplace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somethings are better left untouched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I hope to keep chapters updating at this pace but I've got exams coming up so I may have one more update after this and then maybe about a week hiatus to deal with these stupid tests. Thank you so much for all the feedback. Hope you continue to enjoy the story. 
> 
> ~Inumaru Higuarshi

“Alright so we have two more jobs for today and you’ll be free to go home.” Tom stated as they headed down another street towards the warehouse area of the city. 

“I feel fine now so if there are more things that we need to get done today we should go ahead and get them finished.” Shizuo insisted, taking a drag of his cigarette as he walked alongside his senior. 

Tom gave him a quick glance and he knew instantly that his lie was caught. He had never been much of a liar and when it came to Tom, he might has well have hung a neon sign over his head that he was lying every time he so much as tried. Luckily it wasn’t too often as he never had much to ever lie about. Truth was that after they had left the restaurant, he had felt calm…for all of about five minutes. By the time they had gotten onto their first job after that, whatever calm that had come might as well have never existed. Needless to say, they were able to get the money after the client lost their main kitchen wall and the collateral roof that went with it. The next client was the victim of a convenient pedestrian crossing sign and the one after met their fate with his signature vending machine fast pitch. 

Now, with the walk, he could feel his mood progressively worsening. Something just felt wrong. Something for this whole day had just felt wrong. Tom kept silent for the rest of the walk and by the time they had arrived at their destination, his usually chant of kill, kill, kill, kill, was pounding strong in his head.

Finding the warehouse locked was nothing new. Punching through the door of the warehouse like it was nothing more than papier-mâché was nothing new. Finding the client missing was nothing new. But the smell…the familiar stink of something foul was new. 

“It looks like this place hasn’t been used in the last two days. Whoever, or whomevers,” Tom grimaced when he looked around to find less than appealing piles of food garbage and even further when large amounts of discarded and used condoms were seen to be mixed within the trash, “fled in a hurry.”

It smells like shit. 

Shizuo overturned box after box after box. 

It smells like shit.

He lifted the fallen metal pieces lying around like they were nothing more than dust bunnies.

It smells like shit.

He almost tripped over it had he not caught himself at the last minute when the glint of a too shiny, too new lock glinted in the sunlight, making itself known in such a dilapidated facility. 

“Huh? Oi, Shizuo, you find something?” Tom came up behind him when he noticed the blond squat down.

There was a trap door with a heavy padlock hidden in one of the furthest corners of the warehouse. 

‘Warehouses have basements now?’ Tom scratched his head in bewilderment. He was learning something new every day. 

“Tom, I’m going to go take a look. Come down after me only after I give you a shout.” Shizuo snapped the lock with two fingers and Tom found himself once again thanking the heavenly entities that this man was with him.

“Shizuo, that’s not safe. Who knows what is even down there.” Tom tried to protest but of course he knew that it fell on deaf ears when he saw the metal door being flung through the air and the long-limbed blonde descending into the darkness below.

“I’ll yell if I need anything,” came a grunt and then, Tom lost sight of Shizuo.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The first thing Shizuo took note of was the unearthly chill of the underground. Also…SINCE WHEN DID WAREHOUSES HAVE UNDERGROUND TUNNELS WITH FUCKING HORROR MOVIE MOTION ACTIVATED LAMPS?!

“Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill,” Shizuo found himself muttering as he worked his way through the long tunnel. The smell that he had smelled when first entering the warehouse was only getting worse. What the hell? It smells like shit. It smells like shit. It smells like shit. It smells like shit. It smells like shit.

He found himself so lost in thought that once again, he almost collided face first with what appeared to be the end of the tunnel. One heavy, metal, rusted to all fuck door with a lock the size of small serpent. Shizuo felt a vein twitch. More locked doors…

“WHO THE FUCK DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE!!!!!” With one massive kick, the blonde sent the door crashing through, lock and all into the connecting room. In the distant he heard Tom give a shout. Oh yeah, he had said that he would yell if he needed anything.

“Don’t worry about it Tom!” 

“Just be careful!” He heard his senior’s faint reply and decided it was more than okay for him to proceed.

The room was awful. It smelled awful, he could barely see in front of him, and the stains on the floor looked like a mixture of blood and things he didn’t really want to think about. What kind of room is this place? Fumbling his hands blindly along the nearest wall, he felt a small rope hit his palm. Giving it a small tug turned on the single lightbulb in the middle of the ceiling, casting the room in a damp, artificial light. Well at least now he could see his own feet, the bodyguard grumbled to himself as he stepped further into the room. The same feeling that had been bothering him all day was only increasing with each step that he took. This place smelled like shit. It smelled like shit the more and more he walked. What the hell? Why was this room so damn big? And why is it that the more and more he walked, the more his gut was telling him to just smash the entire room to bits and leave nothing behind? Stewing in his thoughts he cursed when he stumbled over a large metal rod on the floor, wincing about at the loud clang that resulted. A tiny, muffled rustle off to the furthest corner of the room caught his attention.

“Hey, if you are trying to hide down here, you are dead for making me go this far to hunt your sorry ass down.” Shizuo growled, making his way over to the source of the sound. The closer he got, the louder the noise was becoming, and the worse the feeling that something was wrong was becoming. 

“JUST COME OUT AND FACE ME LIKE A MAN!” He yelled as he closed the remaining distance between him and the source of noise. 

“Huh?” Shizuo froze. He was met with emptiness. He felt his irritation increase and his fists clench. The smell was at its worst, the feeling was at its worst, he was underground in a god forsaken room that he had no idea where he was, and all he wanted to do was –

The muffled rustle came again from behind the last pile of upright crates hidden in the darkness of the farthest corner. Shizuo squinted and sure enough, there was a small flicker of movement. The ex-bartender didn’t need any further indication and stomped toward it. 

“Now I have—!” The sight he met froze him dead in his tracks. His blood ran cold. Colder than he had ever felt in his entire life as he was more accustomed to the feeling of burning, burning so hot that it felt like his skin would flake off if he was touched in the slightest. But now, all he felt was ice, ice, cold, cold, cold, cold and he could not get warm. The figure in front of him was a human…that much he could still tell. Too skinny arms covered in grime shackled with thick rings to the wall in front of it; a thin, heaving chest littered with sores and bruises with each of the ribs clearly prominent, and the legs…stick thin twigs bent and twisted looking like they had been broken once or twice and then never allowed to heal properly. But it was more the fact that between those thin, abused legs ran tracks of dried blood that overlapped with each other, some of which were still wet while the rest was dry, caking, and flaking away. He couldn’t see its…no, his face. Pathetic whimpers and muffled moans filled the air between them making the blond realize that he had gone eerily silent. For the first time in his life, same as it had been that it was the first time in his life that he had felt this sort of bone chilling cold, the constant flow of rage and rampant ranting in his mind was quiet. The…human attempted to move, shuffling itself further into the corner only to give a small muted whimper and then give up, lying there, the tiny bird cage of a chest rising and falling rapidly.

“Hey,” Shizuo forced his body to finally move. The figure just lay there still, breathing and squeaking. “Hey can you hear me?” Still there was no response. 

Taking one hesitant step forward had him backpedaling as if burnt when the…human began to struggle outright again, small muted whimpers and harsh breaths clearly causing it more pain than doing it any good. Still Shizuo could not see his face. 

“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you.” He felt himself saying as his body moved mechanically back to the struggling figure. Distantly he heard Tom giving a shout asking about his wellbeing but Shizuo could not bring himself to respond. He didn’t want to risk anymore loud noise potentially starting this poor being. He inwardly winced thinking about just how loud and destructive he had been with his initial entrance and search. Taking slow steps forward, he could now see the full extent of the injuries to the upper body. Bruises, open sores, cuts, words carved everywhere into the skin. He cringed even more when he noticed two relatively fresh stab wounds into the shoulder blades. How was this person still alive? The pale neck was coated with bite marks; further testament of the treatment this person had undergone. Now that he was closer, he noticed the continuous trembling of the broken body prostrated before him. Just a little bit more and he would then be able to see the face, ran through the blonde’s head as he felt himself take those last few steps. Then, he stopped breathing as his mind worked to comprehend the sight before him. He was seeing thread, thick, black, wire-like thread crisscrossing this…human’s lips, puncture wounds festering and leaking blood over the already congealed scabs. Further up, he saw more…over their eyes. Each eyelid was heavily bound in the same thread and the blood tracks that flowed from those wounds were streaked and striped, bits washed away when the blood had mixed with the tears that had been shed, tears that continued to flow now. 

Shizuo’s knees collapsed with twin thuds with his hands flying forward to catch himself, a hairbreadth’s away from touching this poor tortured being. Rubble crumbling into the twin pits where his hands were balled into fists while the blond desperately not to be sick. His stomach roiled in protest and he felt his panted breaths mix together with dry heaves. How could something like this exist in this world? How could something like this exist? How could this exist? How could this exist? Reaching forward felt like he was moving through tar. Gently, gently, gently, gently, gently, gently, he told himself as he felt his fingers brush a dirt, blood, and tear stained cheek. The resulting jerk was like an electric shock through the prone form as this…human tried their best to jerk away from the contact, whimpers tearing through the thick stitches as blood began to seep anew. Shizuo pulled back as if burned.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He whispered. The being still struggled, tears leaking out the sides of the bound eyelids.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He said a little louder. The being’s small chest heaved up and down, looking as if it would burst if it filled any fuller or deflated any faster.

“I’M NOT GOING TO HURT YOU!” Shizuo roared and grabbed the being by the shoulder. Distantly, he heard Tom shout down to him again but it was drowned out by the buzz that ran through his mind. This shoulder, the fragile bone structure and the skin was too thin, but he knew this shoulder. Looking a little closer (desperately blocking out the stiches), he saw the elegant nose and the sharp dips of thin eyebrows. The hair was jet black like that of a raven’s, although now coated and matted with blood, mud, and clear substance that had Shizuo’s stomach heaving once more. He knows this being that he gripped tightly in one hand. He knows him. He knows him. He knows him. He knows him. This feeling, this smell, this touch, this body…he knows them all. 

“Izaya.” He all but breathed. The figure in his hand went limp and the breathing evened out. Izaya had fainted. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_“Damn this bitch is tight.” A chorus of jeers and laughter followed the statement as the grunting resumed. It whimpered as it felt each thrust rub it raw and tear it apart anew. It didn’t know how long it had been there, or how long it was going to stay. There was never any time in the darkness and the other things seemed to have good days and bad days in terms of how long they wanted to use it for their games. Honestly, it was getting bored. All there was, was pain and humiliation. So it walked away. It walked away from the darkness and towards a door with a small sliver of light glowing from beneath the thick wooden frame. It opened the door._

_“Why do you come here?” It heard the jeering voice say. It could not respond of course. It just enjoyed the fact that here it could see something other than darkness. It saw a door and light, and here now, it saw grey and a person. The person was beautiful it thought. Too skinny, too sharp, and too broken. It chuckled to itself at this thought. What was it to say broken._

_“Do you even know where you are?” The person asked, mouth pulled into a painful smile. It merely cocked its head to the side and continue to stare at the beautiful broken person._

_“This is my room~!” The person twirled around the empty grey expanse. “Only I am here and only I can stay here. No one can hurt me here. Not even monsters.” The person was laughing, a sharp broken sound that made it want to cry. The person stopped._

_“No one can hurt me in this room. Not even monsters.” The person whispered again. “Monsters, monsters, monsters, monsters…”_

_It reached out towards the person only to find itself being thrown out back into the darkness and the door slammed then vanished._

_Monsters…it thought as it wobbled back to its feet. They were still going. It didn’t want to go back to that just yet, but it knew if it didn’t go back it would get hurt more. But it was bored, so it decided to wander in the dark for just a bit longer._

_Monsters…it thought. Monsters, monsters, monsters, monsters, and suddenly, in the darkness, it felt warmth. It gasped. It was warm. It was so warm, so very warm. It wanted to much to hold onto the warm but it felt the cold pulling it back. It thought once more that monsters weren’t so bad if it could be warm, even for just a small moment._

_“Fucking bitch is getting off on this!” It was back and then it felt a disgusting warm inside of it. This was not the warm of a monster. This warm was immediately followed by more pain._

_“Damn, he’s loose as fuck now. Slip and slide right in.” More grunts and laughter followed. It gave a small squeal when it felt HOT!!_

_“Do that again! The bitch tightened up!” More hot, more hot, more hot, more hot. It gave pathetic squeals. It didn’t like hot. Make the hot stop. The hot hurt._

_“Wish we could make this bitch air tight but the boss said the other hole had to be closed. It was getting annoying.”_

_“Heard he used to like to use his teeth.”_

_“Well then the fucker should have just lost them all. Heard it makes for a softer ride.”_

_“You get sucked off by a toothless grandma before or something.”_

_“Fuck you. Just saying, one hole for use ain’t that fun.”_

_It didn’t really understand but suddenly a hand was under its chin and then the hand squeezed hard. It whimpered._

_“But one hole is all that this thing needs. He’s a hole.”_

_“Yeah yeah. Shut up so I can finish. Listening to you talk is a major boner killer.”_

_It felt itself begin to drift back into the itself again. Monster, it thought. Monster, monster, monster, monster, monster._

_But then…this warm wasn’t going away. This warm…was heavy and it wasn’t going away._

_“Stay out of my room.” It heard the person whisper and then, it was by itself in the warm._

_Its last thoughts were that…the warm…was nice…and that…color…yellow…is a nice color._


	3. Surfacing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To sleep and perchance to dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we go, Chapter 3 is here. I'm super happy that my story has had such a strong and positive reception. I hope that this new update is enough to keep everyone fed until the last one for a little while tomorrow. I'm still typing furiously and now I'm complete all the way until Chapter 5/6 depending on how I choose to divide it. Anyways, without further ado...please enjoy chapter 3.

Everything passed as a blur for Shizuo. He had broken the chains with ease and not caring that he was once again ruining another set of the clothes Kasuka had given him, he lifted the figure into his arms. No, not a figure. Not just some broken creature that he had stumbled upon on the floor. Not something that surely wished it had died a long time ago, no. It was Izaya. It was his most hated and sworn enemy that he had threatened to kill over and over and once had almost succeeded. It was Izaya that lay nestled in his arms in a false sense of peace from having fainted. It was Izaya that had Tom squawking in disbelief as he emerged from that room, that horrible chamber of darkness that had held his most hated enemy until just moments ago. This chance discovery had his mind mocking him, causing him to wonder if the person had not owed a debt, would Izaya have wasted away in there. The too thin figure held like glass in his, what now felt like obscenely strong arms, looked very much so on the verge of death. This small thing that had once thought of itself as a god amongst men, too above the human kind that the only thing it thought it could do was the ridiculous task of loving all humans. Well…now look at what the humans have done to him. 

“Jesus, we need to call an ambulance!” Shizuo heard Tom shouting, watching as his senior quickly shrugged off his suit jacked to cover the pale being in his arms. Izaya trembled at the contact, letting out a pitiable whimper though those horrible bound lips before snuggling back deeper against Shizuo’s chest and luckily, remained in his state of unconscious bliss. At the word ambulance, Shizuo snapped back into himself and quickly snatched away his senior’s phone before he could press call.

“No.” the blond stated in a deadpan serious tone. His fingers were already dialing the number he was way too familiar with for his own good before placing the phone to his ear and listening and counting the rings..

“Shinra here,” came the sing-songy voice on the other end of the line. “Did you get yourself hit with a truck again Shizuo?”

“I found Izaya. Send Celty. I’ll have Tom send you the location.” Shizuo promptly hung up without listening to the flabbergasted choking that had started at the other end of the line. Tom took the hint and quickly punched in the address and sent it. Silence hung between two of them save for their breathing, and the shallow gasps of their third companion. After what felt like years, the quiet rumble of a whiny reached both of their ears and Ikkebukuro’s black rider came into their line of vision. Celty in all of her good graces could sense the atmosphere and walked up without typing a word. One small…glance at the figure buried in Shizuo’s arms had her entire form in tremors of horror and barely suppressed rage. 

“Can you take him?” Shizuo whispered. “I’ll follow and meet you at the apartment.”

Celty simply nodded before reaching out with her black tendrils and gently wrapped the fragile bundle in her shadows. But the instant the shadows began to lift Izaya out of the cradle of Shizuo’s arms, all three people froze. The broken figure had a full body spasm, small cries ripping their way through those brutalized lips causing new rivulets of blood to pour from the puncture wounds. Weak hands clawed at Shizuo’s shirt, their grip barely comparable to that of a small kitten, grasping desperately at his vest as tears poured from equally brutalized eyelids. Celty ripped her shadows away in a hurry and Shizuo quickly retightened his grip on the shaking body. The effect was immediate as Izaya stilled and fell back into what the three of them could only assume to be his continued state of unconsciousness. 

The trio stared at the pale figure, not even daring to breath for fear of once again upsetting him. Tom was the first one to speak up.

“Well…what about if you have the bike take Shizuo and then you and I follow?” 

Celty shook her head before finally taking out her signature PDA and typing rapidly.

[I’ve never tried this before so I can hope this works]

Gesturing for them to take a step back, Celty folded her hands in an intense moment of concentration. Shizuo and Tom watching in silent wonder as the black bike they were so used to seeing turned inch by into a sleek, black car.

[Shooter thinks it’s a little strange but it should get us to where we need to go] 

“It’s fine Celty. You really are something.” Tom smiled as he reached hesitantly to open the door, revealing a rather plush interior.

[Shinra has been having me watch a lot of mobster movies] 

Celty admitted a little bit flustered. Shizuo chuckled slightly before once again focusing on the seriousness of the situation. Gingerly he stepped forward and folded himself into the back seat, being careful so as not to jostle Izaya. The former informant remained solidly still that had it not been for the rise and fall Tom’s jacket, Shizuo would have long since thought him dead. He shut down the thought whispered to him that maybe he would be better off if he was. 

[Everyone okay?]

“Yeah Celty. Thanks.” The blonde muttered shifting only slightly to readjust his arms. Izaya stayed blissfully silent, just breathing in those too short, too small, too rapid breaths. The bloody tear tracks had now dried over and caked over the glowing pale face, leading down to his…lips that trembled and twitched even in his dreams. Shizuo couldn’t help himself as he reached out and gently began to wipe at one of the tear tracks, breathing a small sigh of relief when he was met with pale, flawless flesh underneath. A clearing of the throat snapped him back into reality whereby there were two other people who had just witnessed something that was completely out of character for the Beast of Ikkebukuro. 

[We’re going now]

Celty typed, showing the PDA to both of the men who nodded solemnly. The car silently hummed to life and they began their journey back into the city. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_It felt as if it was drifting. It was floating around in the endless expanse of darkness that was its birthplace and home. Normally, the darkness would feel suffocating and it would find itself more often than not, curled up in a ball in a small pocket of space trying to breathe. But this time, it could move its full body and not only that, it could travel. It still felt as if it was moving through mud at some points but it could move, drift, and wander around its usually restrictive environment. It wondered if it could find the door again if it tried. Gliding forward, it froze. There was a door. But this door was not the solid oak door that it was so used to finding and then being thrown out of. This door was somehow softer, warmer, welcoming with its rich brown color and smooth mahogany texture. But somehow, this welcoming door also made it afraid. It was so used to pain, to humiliation, to nothing but horror in its day to day existence that the warm gentleness radiating off this door was terrifying._

_“You might as well go.” It whipped itself around and fell on its butt, looking up at the figure who had spoken. Oh, it was that same beautiful, broken person only this time, they weren’t smiling._

_“You don’t talk do you…,” the beautiful person murmured. “But I guess that isn’t your fault at all now is it.”_

_It shook its head slightly, still so confused as to why this beautiful person was talking to a thing like it. Also, why was this beautiful person outside of their door. Didn’t they know that this darkness was dirty, filthy, corrupting…_

You’re nothing but a dirty toy.  
Slut  
Fuck hole  
Cum dump

_It shut its eyes as those hateful voices began to bombard its consciousness. It hurt. It hurt. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. It was all it was asking for was for it to stop._

_“Hey,” the sharp clear voice cut through the hateful chanting like a sharp knife through butter. That beautiful person was crouching down in front of it and…he was TOUCHING it. It shuddered at the hand on its…shoulder, staring wide-eyed in bewilderment at the prescience that filled its senses. Why was this beautiful person touching something as low, filthy, discarded—_

_“Stop it.” The person’s grip on its shoulder tightened. “Just stop it.”_

_It could only sit and stare, confused and afraid. Would this beautiful person hurt him? Would this beautiful person throw him out of his darkness into nothing? He always did throw him out of his room and slam the door. He would always disappear. He would always laugh, say hateful things, and then ignore it. Why was this person here? Why was this person touching it? It didn’t want to hurt anymore._

_“Hey,” the person whispered. The grip loosened and soon, the one shoulder touch was joined by a second and suddenly, it found itself inside of an embrace. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”_

_It was confused. Was it crying? What was crying?_

_“I know, I’m sorry. I should be thanking you for all that you have been through for me but instead all I ever do is what I usually do with all my pretty humans. I show them all the love I feel through cruelness and manipulation. But I guess with you, it should be different. After all, you aren’t exactly human.”_

_It knew it wasn’t human. Whatever a human was it didn’t quite even know. But it knew that this beautiful, broken person was its world. It would do all it could to protect this person that should not even exist in the filth of its birthplace. Why was he outside of his door? He would get dirty being out in the darkness for so long. It felt itself grab desperately at this person’s clothes, clawing with all the effort it could muster in its discarded body and pushed._

_“Hey!”_

_It shook its head and kept pushing. It could see it behind him. It could see the door. It didn’t want to dirty this beautiful, broken being so it had to put him safely behind the door again. It pushed and shoved and surprisingly, the person went with it. A small smile stretched across his face looking like a knife slashed across pale flesh._

_“I understand. I’ll go for now but know that I’m here and I’ll always be here.” He laughed that broken, crazy laughter and pointed to it. “After all, at some point, you’ll come to realize that a monster cannot save you.”_

_It pushed one last time and finally that person was behind the door._

_“This is my room and I will come out when I feel like it.” The person spread his arms out wide above him and twirled. “This is my domain, this is my kingdom and you are a mistake that I needed.”_

_The door began to close as he started to laugh. It flinched at the sound but kept watching as he sank back into the safety behind the closing door._

_“Soon you’ll see that there is only so much you can handle and on that day, I’ll be back.”_

_It shook its head vigorously. No, this person must be protected. This person cannot be allowed to come out into the filth that it has long since been sequestered in._

_“You’ll need me and on that day, that monster will break everything.” The door slammed closed and disappeared, leaving it alone once again in front of the other oddly warm door._

_‘You should just go.’ He had said to it. He wanted it to go. It should go. There was no point to it sitting here in the dark after all because all it would do would get bored again._

_Placing a hand on the surface, it shuddered when it felt the warmth race through its being. The knob was smooth and the same warmth danced up through its fingertips into its arm and down into its chest. Taking a deep breath, it twisted the knob and pushed out. A small stream of blinding light flowed into the darkness and suddenly, it felt itself being pulled to the surface._

_‘You’ll need me,’ echoed through its mind as it closed its eyes and let its form ascend to wherever this light was taking it._

_‘You’ll need me and on that day, that monster will break everything.’_

_Monster, monster, monster, monster, it kept repeating to itself. It was close to the top now. It could feel fear flood through itself with this sense of an unfamiliar environment. It wanted to meet this monster. It really wanted to meet this monster._

_As it broke through the surface, it instantly thought that it was so warm. But what an odd beeping noise._


	4. Breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And to dream, per chance to sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I originally had this all as one chapter but then it just felt like waaay to much...so two chapters in one day because they aren't complete without the other. HERE'S CHAPTER 4!!!

The ride back was silent, only interrupted when the short pit stop of dropping Tom off at his home had his senpai saying goodbye to the bunch. Celty sat still and Shizuo watched the scenery pass out the window. Izaya stayed asleep, covered in Tom’s jacket, buried in the cradle of Shizuo’s arms. Neither of them said anything when they reached their destination. Gingerly stepping out from the car with his bundle in tow, Shizuo headed to the entrance of the complex and called an elevator while Celty shifted Shooter back into a bike and followed after. 

“CELTY! MY LOVE WHERE HAVE YOU—,” Shinra came bursting through only to choke in horror when he saw the form draped across Shizuo’s arms.

“Get him inside to the spare room now.” All traces of the underground doctor’s playful mirth were replaced by cold professionalism. Shizuo walked solemnly into the spare room with Celty right at his heels. She busied herself with pulling the covers off the bed, then helping Shinra bring in the necessary equipment and setting it up around the blond bartender and the newly found informant.

“You need to put him down Shizuo.” Shinra said. Celty quickly pulled out her PDA, typed furiously before shoving it in Shinra’s face. Shizuo knew she was telling him about the less than positive reaction they had received when they had tried to separate the informant from the blonde. 

“Well I can’t examine and treat him like this,” Shinra sighed with a tinge of exasperation but mostly desperate sadness as he glanced to where his only two friends stood in front of him. Well, one was standing and the other Shinra was praying and hoping on every bated breath would survive until dawn. Shizuo simply stood there watching as the headless rider and the underground doctor went back and forth about just what to do with about the situation. In his arms, he felt his cargo shift slightly, letting out a small squeaked groan before settling back down, head even more securely buried into the ex-bartender’s chest. When Shizuo focused his attention back to the arguing pair, he saw that they were both staring at him.

“What,” he growled. He really needed a smoke and everything still smelled like shit. God, it smelled like shit, smelled like shit, smelled like shit, smelled like shit. 

Sensing his friend’s growing agitation, Shinra stepped away from his beloved and placed a calming hand on the blonde’s shoulder. 

“Look Shizuo. I need you to try to put Izaya down. I have to examine his injuries and give him the proper treatment. He’s bound to have infections and internal injuries that we aren’t even aware of.” The underground doctor looked pleadingly up at the ex-bartender who ground his teeth together and gave a tight nod.

“I will, but…,” he glanced over once more at Celty who’s body language all but gave away that she was bracing for a heart-shattering scene.

“Please Shizuo. It’s for the best.” Shinra spoke up again, gesturing to the open blankets of the bed surrounded by all sort of complicated medical stuff that made Shizuo’s head hurt just looking at them. With a huff, he walked gingerly over to the edge of the bed. Shifting Izaya into the cradle of one of his arms, he gently removed the covering of Tom’s jacket, keeping his eyes at soft focus so as not to not look at the broken being and preserve what little was left of the former info broker’s modesty. 

That part was easy as Izaya didn’t even stir. Now, both Shinra and Celty watched on bated breath as Shizuo began to lay the pale figure into the too white, too sterile sheets. As soon as the blonde began pulling away his arm, the figure below him snapped into action. Pathetic whimpers, panicked gasps, tears…god the tears, and Shinra shouting in the background had Shizuo feeling that if his body was any more tense, it would snap itself in half. This was not something he wanted to see. This was not something he should had ever seen. This was not something that should have ever happened. Skeletal hands reached up for him. The sheer desperation of the motion had Shizuo almost stooping over to lift Izaya back up into the cradle of his arms had it not been for in that moment, everything stilled and went eerily silent. Shizuo looked up to see a small syringe pricking into the grimy neck and Shinra biting his lip to the point of blood as tears flowed down his cheeks. 

“It’s a sedative.” The underground doctor whispered, pushing up his glasses with clinical intent as he looked at the prone form below him. The injuries just on the surface had all three of them cringing. A few more moments of silence followed before the doctor clapped his hands over his own cheeks to snap them out of their trance. His face broke into the most forced smiled that both Shizuo and Celty wished never to see again. It looked like the smile of a serial killer out for blood. 

“I need you both to leave. I’m going to give him a thorough examination and then afterwards,” Shinra pointedly looked to the tall blonde, “I’m going to need your help to get him over the bath.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo muttered. “No problem.”

The underground doctor quickly shoed the two of them out of the room and then with a solemn click, shut the door behind the two emotionally exhausted individuals.

“I’m going out for a smoke.” Shizuo grunted and headed for the balcony. Celty nodded and turned herself around to snag the remote before collapsing onto the couch. The TV remained silent even as Shizuo gingerly slid the sliding glass pane closed behind him.

The first breath of nicotine was pure heaven for his stressed out mind and the first cigarette was quickly followed by another and another. By the fifth one, he finally felt as if the constant confused haze in his mind was clearing into something more manageable. Closing his eyes and allowing for the slow burn progression of his fifth cigarette to blow into the wind, the blond faced the breeze and allowed his mind to fill with thoughts that had been screaming at him since he had found the flea.

It had been a year since he had last seen the annoying bastard. He didn’t bother asking about him because in all seriousness why would he. The less property damage he caused the more his paycheck was and the less trouble the city had to deal with. But then, glancing over to the drawn curtains of the spare room where said flea was fighting for his life, he felt his heart do a strange tugging that resulted in a growl that wasn’t pure anger from the fortissimo. 

What had the flea done to deserve this? He knew the flea had been into plenty of shady business with most of it being less than legal but this…no one…not even the damn flea ever deserved something like this. How long had the flea been there? Had he been there the whole year he was missing? Shizuo smoked the rest of the fifth cigarette before dropping his head into his arms, wincing when the smell of grime and iron hit his nose. He still had not changed clothes and the flea, as dirty as he was before, well, whatever the warehouse left on him was now all over his sleeves. But still, no one deserved this. No one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one. Before he knew it Celty was rushing over to his side when he realized he had bent the balcony railing into a ribbon.

“Sorry.” The blond muttered, throwing out the last remains of the smoke before turning to face his headless companion.

[It’s alright] 

She hurriedly typed. 

[I was worried that if you didn’t notice you would have fallen]

Shizuo chuckled. “Even if I fell I would have been fine.”

Celty shook her head before going back to typing furiously on her little PDA.

[That’s beyond the point. Besides, I think Shinra would be more than upset if he had to fix up both of his only friends in the same night]

Shizuo winced when he thought about that and glanced once more at the drawn curtains of the spare room. The light in there was giving off an abnormally clinical and artificial aura that had his stomach twisting into knots. The thought of just what the doctor was seeing…the thought of just what had happened to the flea.

[Shizuo]

The PDA shoved into his face quickly distracted him from that train of thought as he realized the ribbon he had been twisting was starting to tear.

“Sorry,” he quickly released his hand from their purchase and drew out his sixth cigarette. Weren’t his lungs going to love him tonight.

[I understand that you’re worried. We all are. But the best we can do now is just trust Shinra]

Shizuo grunted a nod and went back to smoking before he turned to his companion and voiced the one question he had been afraid of speaking the whole night. This one question would mean he acknowledged that the events that happened tonight were real and not just part of some fucked up nightmare he was going through because who knows, maybe the damn flea finally managed to sneak an effective drug into his system.

“What will happen when he wakes up?”

The silence that greeted him was deafening as they both pondered that question with a sinking heart. Shizuo wanted to scream when his mind shouted that it might be better if the flea just didn’t wake up. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, he ground right back. He was the only one allowed to kill the flea. The flea was his to kill, his to hurt, his to…

“ARGH!!!” Shizuo shouted forcing his headless companion to quickly wrap his arms in her shadows, body tense with the effort to prevent his fist from sailing through their apartment wall.

[SHIZUO CALM DOWN]

“Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!” the blond shouted. “The flea is mine to kill. Whoever did this I’m going to find them and they are going to die. I’m going to kill them dead. I’m going to kill them deader than dead.”

[I know. I know. I know. But please calm down. You destroying our apartment isn’t going to help Izaya]

“I’m going to –”

“SHIZUO!” came the shout of a distinctive doctor that had both offending parties on the balcony quickly snapping to attention. Silence hung heavy in the air for a few moments before Shinra took a deep breath and continued.

“I need you to help me take Izaya into the bath. I’ve disinfected the majority of his superficial wounds but I would like to get him fully clean before I stitch him up.”

“How bad is he?” Shizuo whispered. The grim line of the doctor’s mouth told him that it was far worse than he had imagined.

“I was going to tell you this after you got him cleaned up but…,” Shinra hesitated, adjusting his glasses before continuing. “His legs need to be rebroken and then set properly. He will probably never be able to move the same but he should be able to walk and run with a partial recovery.”

The unspoken statement as to whether or not he will even be the same was never asked because the answer there was a clear cut definitely not. 

“I need you to rebreak his legs Shizuo.” Shinra said with dead seriousness. Shizuo sucked in a sharp breath, his entire form going back to being as taunt as a bow string.

“Shinra, you’ve got to be nuts!” Shizuo shouted in protest. “I’d make them into powder. I could rip off his entire leg, I could—”

“Shizuo,” Shinra cut off his rant with a stern statement and a held up hand that left no room for argument. “I will direct you through the entire process and I know you well enough to tell you with confidence that I have complete faith that you will do this just fine.”

Shizuo opened and closed his mouth a few times, flabbergasted and taken aback by such a blind statement of trust that he was so unaccustomed to. The blonde then nodded numbly and followed the white coat back into the room. Without taking too much of a look, Shizuo quickly, but gently picked up the prone figure and walked with brisk, long strides to the adjoining bathroom. Shinra had already filled the tub with lukewarm water, leaving the sequence of cleaning on the bathroom counter. Shizuo felt as if he was moving through tar as he placed the drugged informant into the water, making sure his head was well above the surface before setting about removing his vest and under shirt. 

First, the blonde took the shampoo bottle and began gingerly shampooing the raven’s hair, grimacing as blood and other less than desirable substances came flaking out of the dark locks. Taking the removable nozzle from the shower, he then rinsed out the shampoo, making sure that the suds didn’t cling to the now open holes of what had once held that horrible, black thread. He set about shampooing for a second time as more and more grime filled the tub, turning the once clear water a less than appealing murky brown. After the second time of soap, rub, then rinse, the usual glossy shine of hair was appearing. One more final round and Shizuo deemed it acceptable to continue to move to the rest of the body. 

The blond frowned at the current state of the water. Letting out a sigh he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in, he set about draining the tub. Luckily, Shinra’s instructions stated not to refill the tub but instead to gingerly use the fresh sponge to scrub away the remaining grime from around the wounds and the rest of the body while using the spray constantly to make sure that none of the dirty water settled into the freshly disinfected wounds. Shizuo gritted his teeth, glaring down at his traitorous body as his mind chanted the mantra of gently, gently, gently, gently, gently. He froze when the sedated figure gave a small, shaky breath, twitching his skeletal fingers slightly before once again settling down into drug induced stillness. The debt collector let out a long breath that he once again hadn’t realized he had been holding, waited a few more moments to make sure that Izaya was indeed still asleep, before gently getting back to work.

Seriously, what was with him and forgetting how to breathe. Scrubbing up and down the pale torso, Shizuo felt again just how truly fragile the fluttering rise and fall of Izaya’s chest was beneath his hand. In comparison, his hand felt monstrous. He silently chuckled to himself when he looked at the sleeping raven and thought about how that arrogant smirk would play across those thin lips if he ever knew that Shizuo even had an inkling of acknowledgement towards his status as the monster Izaya has so adamantly deemed him as. But currently, those lips were left with gaping holes of which, fresh blood was beginning to ooze from once more. Moving quickly, Shizuo finished up with the torso and arms and the front side of those mangled legs. Oh god. He had to break those legs again soon. A knock startled the debt collector out of his progressively morbid thoughts.

“Shizuo, everything alright in there?” Shinra asked through the door.

“Yeah, just finishing up.” Shizuo grunted back in response as he knew he was delaying the inevitable. The front was clean…but now he had to clean the back. He had seen what had been flowing from a certain area he really didn't want to think about and down between those twisted legs to know full well of what had happened to the flea.

“Okay. Lay him back in the bed when you’re finished and then we can begin to close his wounds and reset his legs. I need to give him another dose of sedative soon. I don’t want to risk him waking up in pain and panicking.”

“Yeah sure.” The ex-bartender took a deep breath and with all the control he could muster, brought the broken informant back into his arms before bringing him to lean forward and exposed his back. With detached scrubs and as fast as he could, Shizuo cleaned the remaining grime from the unconscious man, giving him one last rinse before standing and wrapping Izaya into one of the overly fluffy, clean white towels. Kicking the door open, the blond stormed back over to the spare room and gingerly placed his charge into the sheets. 

Shinra hurriedly removed the towel and began to hook up various tubes and wires to the thin frame. Shizuo could only stare. Izaya looked so tiny, dwarfed by the large sheets and now even larger and slightly intimidating medical equipment. Clean now, he was paler than the moon and with the white sheets in the background, he really did look like a ghost. The only contrast was his jet black hair now splashed like a vengeful halo around the top of his head. 

“Shizuo we need to start soon. I want to get his legs first so that way, there won’t be any movement to disturb me when I get to closing the rest of his injuries.” 

Shinra, too occupied with the hustle and bustle of getting everything set up and in its proper place, failed to notice the small movement the fragile being on the bed had emitted. For Shizuo, that movement froze him in his place, shooting what only be described as pure panic through his veins. 

He’s waking up. He’s waking up. He’s waking up. SHINRA HE’S WAKING UP!! But he couldn’t say anything. He could watch and mentally scream as the small movement led to another, and then another, and another until finally, Shinra, after turning on the EKG machine took notice and stopped in all of his bustling as well. Slowly, the former informant parted his newly freed lips and took a shuddery breath back into wakefulness.


	5. Wakeful Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To wake a sleeping panther

What an odd beeping noise it thought. It was laying on something…soft…right soft was the right word. Everything still hurt but…it was still and it was bright. Normally when it knew it was awake, it would still only see darkness. But now, it could see light and the light was filling its…eyes…right they were eyes…with glowing red and yellow. Yellow…yellow…right warmth. The warmth had taken him and he had opened the door. Now he could feel…warm. Yes, the same warmth was still there but so was that strange beeping noise. What was that noise? What was that noise? What was that noise?

A murmur came from beside it and instantly, it felt its body take over and flinched sharply backwards. But it couldn’t move. It couldn’t move. It couldn’t move. There was shouting now. So much shouting. It didn’t like shouting, why was there shouting? Please, what did it do. What did it do?! And still, there was that beeping noise, except now it was louder and higher than before. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.

_‘You’ll need me.’_

No, that person was still not ready. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It had to protect that person. 

“Open your eyes.” 

It heard in the distance of its panicked haze. 

“Open your eyes.”

It didn’t have eyes. It couldn’t see. It couldn’t see. It couldn’t see.

“OPEN YOUR EYES IZAYA!!”

The roar of a monster. The monster! It felt its lids shoot open only to shut tightly when the light became too much, too bright, too sharp. It hurt. Its head hurt. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt.

“Dim the lights you idiot.” It heard growled again. The monster. The monster was here. It wanted to meet the monster. It wanted to meet its monster. It wanted to meet his monster.

“Open your eyes.” The monster murmured again. Softer now but still growled as it should coming from a monster. So it tried once again. This time, the light didn’t hurt immediately. Still a little sharp but not bad. The quiet was back except for breathing and that same warmth, that odd beeping. It tried again. And again. And again. Each time, it felt it getting a little better. It could see white and black, odd lines in the white, and grey shadows. It could see. It could see. It could see!

“Just a little more.” 

Yes. It could do this. More and more it could see colors as the haze of darkness retreated ring by ring back into the edges of its…eyes. Yes. They were eyes and they could see. When the darkness was no longer there it heard from above him, twin sets of gasped breaths.

“Look at me.” It heard whispered. Look? What did it mean to look? It could see but what was look. There was white, black, the grey of shadows, odd lines, and warmth. The beeping sound was still there. What was that noise?

“Look at me.” It heard repeated. But still, what was look? It whimpered. It was confused. It could see and it was awake. It was confused. It could see, but what was look? What did it mean by look? 

“Look at me.” The growl snapped it out of its spiraling thoughts and finally, it understood. Whatever was talking was in front of it…just a little…up. Right…up. It felt its head move and then its eyes gave way from the white and black and strange squiggly lines with shadows to more black…but…it couldn’t remember that…and more and more up until it saw…yellow. It knew that color. It knew it. It knew it. It knew it. It was yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow. It was finally meeting the monster and he was warm and yellow. It felt its…hand…yes hand…reach forward to touch the monster. It could move! 

The monster didn’t move but stared at him with his…eyes…yes those were the monster’s eyes. Those eyes looked…hurt. Why? It wanted to know why. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why…but it was tired. It felt the darkness calling it again but this time, it felt it would be peaceful. It wanted to know why, why was the monster hurt…and what was that beeping noise?

As its birthplace consumed it once more, it felt its lips twitch into something. Its lips pulled and it didn’t hurt too badly. Wonder what that was. What, what, what, what, what…and it drifted. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Watching Izaya panic when Shinra moved a little too close and spoke, voice barely above a whisper, tore Shizuo from his frozen state of shock into action. He moved instantly to the foot of the bed before kissing his teeth when the panicked state was not improving with Shinra’s desperate floundering. Izaya had yet to open his eyes and who could blame him. The idiot flea probably didn’t even know he had his eyes back. Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it. This was not the flea. This was not the flea. This was not his flea. This panicking, frightened, broken creature was not Izaya and he was going to hurt himself even more if he didn’t calm his idiot ass down.

Shizuo ignored the shout of protest from Shinra as he climbed onto the bed and pinned the flailing limbs down ignoring his screaming heart when he heard those breaths turn ragged and watched that glass chest heave itself well beyond capacity. 

“Open your eyes.” Shizuo felt more than heard himself say those words the first time around. It was so low that it didn’t surprise him in the least bit when the being, that was not Izaya but was Izaya refused to calm down.

“Open your eyes.” He spoke a little louder. The panicking was still not ceasing but the movement had calmed down. It was obvious that Izaya still didn’t understand what was going on around him, but rather, he was more than used to being held down unable to move. He had simply given up and decided to take whatever fate was going to deal him next. Shizuo felt rage and hatred, deeper than he had ever felt for the flea himself burn through his body towards the people…no…those were not people. Those were the real monsters, the real beasts of this world that reduced a once aloof and proud man to this quivering, terrified mess. Shizuo couldn’t take it anymore. No more, no more, no more, no more, no more. 

“OPEN YOUR EYES IZAYA!” He all but roared into the face of his once mortal enemy. Distantly in the back of his mind he heard Shinra yell out in protest at his rough treatment of an already devastated patient but between his ragged, rage filled pants, Izaya’s whimpers, and the screaming of the heart monitor, it might as well have been the wind. 

Suddenly, as if all the air had left the room, Shizuo saw the eyes of his former enemy shoot wide open for all of a millisecond before squeezing themselves tightly shut, a pained grimace crossing the pale face. 

Shizuo wanted to punch himself for being so stupid. He had been held in the dark for god knows how long with his eyes, Shizuo didn’t even want to think about it, for god knows how long. No wonder the flea called him a protozoan.

“Dim the lights you idiot,” he snarled over to Shinra, who almost tripped over himself in his hurry to comply. The bright, white, fluorescent glow dimmed to a warmer orange hue that filled the room in a sunset like atmosphere.

“Open your eyes.” Shizuo murmured once again to the trembling figure on the bed. 

With his head thrown to the left, Shizuo watched on bated breath as those brutalized lids began to flutter open. Delicate brows knit themselves together in confusion as Izaya was clearly not used to being able to fully perform this motion in what must have been a long time. Once again they squeezed themselves shut before again attempting to open just a little wider each time. Still the brows were furrowed with confusion and the heart monitor continued to flutter at a less than pleasant pace but slowly yet surely…his eyes were opening. Open, close, open, close, open a little wider then close until they were just about fully open. 

“Just a little bit more,” Shizuo felt himself breathe out, restraining his desire to move as the figure beneath him flinched bodily and squeezed those eyes shut once again. However, this time they did not remain so but instead, pushed themselves wide open and stayed that way. 

With his head thrown at its current angle, Shizuo could not see Izaya’s eyes…but god did he want to see them. Was the flea blind? Were there even eyes left? What should he do if the flea was blind? He had to know. He had to know. He had to know. He had to know. 

“Look at me.” Shizuo whispered, his rage beginning to boil when his words seemed to fall on deaf ears, only earning another pathetic flinch from the pinned, prone, now open-eyed informant.

“Look at me.” He had to know. He had to know. He had to know. He had to know. He felt tremors begin to work themselves up through his arms as the body beneath him shook harder, staring wide eyed to the left, and still not looking at him. When the whimpers began to work their way up through the slender, abused throat, the ex-bartender had had enough.

“Look at me,” the blonde growled and surprisingly, Izaya stilled, the monitor beeping calmed down, and an eerie calm fell over the room. 

Confused, furrowed brows relaxed into a more natural state over the now wide open eyes as the former informant laid perfectly still beneath the ex-bartender. Slowly, oh so achingly slowly, Shizuo watched the neck muscles twitch, and the head begin to rotate towards him. His mind went on overdrive. Would there be the same smirk? That same gleam in those ruby red eyes that mocked his very existence? Would there even be a sarcastic comment to follow up with his usual obnoxious nickname?

All those rampant thoughts came to a screeching halt when those eyes turned to his general direction. They were still downcast, staring down at his pants in silence bringing a slight blush to the usual stoic blonde’s face when he realized they pretty much landed directly on his crotch. Using all the will in his body to keep himself still, he took in a few steadying breaths and patiently waited as those eyes kept in their hazy gaze but progressively began to travel up. He never thought he would ever feel so self-conscious in his life about being shirtless in front of someone but the gentle blush that had burned into his face from the start was raging past his ears.

After what felt to him like centuries, those eyes finally met his face and Shizuo would swear from that day forward, that he’d never felt weaker and more exhausted in his entire life. Also, his body continued to forget how to breath because he was sure that the rush of dizziness which hit him harder than any truck Izaya ever had crashing into him, was from the lack of oxygen and not from the small sense of joy that he felt when he saw that those ruby gems were still in their sockets and were focused. 

Izaya for his part remained silent, just staring, staring into his eyes before letting those newly freed orbs travel upwards to focus on his hair. Shizuo watched in wonder when those eyes widened just a fraction and his mortal enemy took a deep, shuddering breath before relaxing fully into his grip. He gently removed his hands from the vice grip he had pinned on the bony arms and sat back slightly.

When those eyes once came to meet his again and Shizuo could read the exhaustion in them. The fear, the pain, the panic, and the entire process of waking up from sedation would have been too much for even a normal human being, let alone the severely injured one beneath him. Silence hung heavy in the air and that annoying beeping of the ever present heart monitor was starting to really grate on the debt collector’s nerves. It was because there was supposed to be more noises besides that machine. There was supposed to be the sarcastic call of his name. The usual venom dipped, “Shizu-chan,” uttered from equally poisonous lips. There was supposed to be a flick black pressed to his throat. He himself was supposed to be roaring with anger, surrounded with the screaming of metal and crunches of concrete. Never has a meeting between the informant of Shinjuku and the fortissimo of Ikkebukuro been silent. 

Just as Shizuo was about to snap, the blonde noticed a twitch of movement from the corner of his eyes. A slender arm was fighting its way off the surface of the bed. The fight looked to be a losing battle as even just this slight movement was bringing those ruby eyes deeper into the hazy waves of exhaustion that looked to claim his being. But still that fragile arm kept moving upwards, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly until finally, it’s fingers brushed the bare skin at the center of Shizuo’s chest in a feather light caress. 

The blonde felt his eyes widen as they kept contact with the red ones that seemed to stare straight through his soul. So much confusion, so much hidden agony, the ever increasing sense of exhaustion, and yet, there was a flicker of…joy?

That feather light caress lasted only for a few seconds but to Shizuo, they might as well have been lifetimes. Finally, those eyes gave in and slid shut as Izaya once more succumbed to the darkness of sleep except now, a small smile pulled at the brutalized lips of the once god-like informant. When there were no signs of further awakening did Shizuo dare to move from his position above the brunette to stand at the side of the bed.

“Well that was eventful,” Shinra sighed causing Shizuo to startle and accidentally bend an IV pole in his grip.

“Woah, hey, hey sorry,” the doctor stuttered, raising one hand in a placating gesture while reaching into his pocket with the other. He pulled out a syringe of what Shizuo was sure to be more sedative and moved past the tall, gangly blonde to plunge the needle into the neck of the sleeping patient.

“Sorry.” Shizuo grunted. His back was giving him a slight twinge from the uncomfortable bent position he had maintained for all that…interaction earlier. The blonde then set about re-bending the abused IV pole back into what he deemed to be an acceptable, semi-functional state.

“Don’t worry about it.” Shinra smiled for a split second, adjusting Izaya’s body to lay more comfortably and centered in the bed. For a few moments, both parties just stared at the sleeping man. In this state of unconsciousness, it just looked as if he hadn’t slept for a good month and had forgotten to eat for even longer. Anything past the face though, had Shizuo’s blood boiling once again in barely contained rage. 

“Let’s get started then.” Shinra clapped his hands, snapping Shizuo out of what was sure to be a rampant string of Kills.

“Started on what?”

Shinra’s eyes darkened behind his glasses as he threw a pair of medical gloves to Shizuo and put on a set himself. 

“We have to fix his legs.”

“Shinra I still don’t—“

A solid glare from the underground doctor shut the blond up in an instant. There was no room for argument for if Shizuo had thought he was determined to find out who did this and kill them, Shinra’s gaze told him that those people might as well have wished to be dead already. 

“We’ll start with the left.” Shinra moved to stand, preparing the plaster and bandages for the cast before pushing a cart up to next to the blonde.

“Follow my instructions very carefully.” Shinra said with no hint of his usual cheerful sing-songy demeanor. This was the doctor. This was the cold professional that Shizuo had placed his life in many times and had had it given back to him in relatively a better state. 

Shizuo merely nodded.

“Okay…place your hands here and here and make sure you have a solid grip…”

And so it began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the last chapter update for at least a week. As I've been saying today is the day of my exams and they will finish on Thursday which then I will be able to keep writing to my heart's content. Thank you to all those who have been following this story and I hope to keep you all happy and entertained with future chapters to come. Thank you to all those who have commented so far as comments feed this hungry author and keep the plot bunnies very happy as well. There is fluff and the H/C snuggles with awkward Shizuo and well...it/Izaya all in the future. But for now, please enjoy the update and ta-ta till later. 
> 
> Happy Halloween,
> 
> Inumaru Higurashi


	6. Echoes of a bullet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three people, three different reactions all around one person that they share three separate view points on

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the continued support whether it has been through your wonderful and insightful comments to the kudos that you have all been so gracious to leave on my work. I'm still reeling slightly about the fact that I have over a thousand hits and over a hundred kudos. I never expected such a overwhelming response and it humbles me as an author to know that you all have taken your lovely time to read and review my work. I hope to keep you all entertained and I'll try to update as quickly as I can. 
> 
> Enjoy the new chapter,
> 
> Inumaru Higurashi

The first sound of a snapping bone echoed through the apartment like a gunshot. Celty sprang from her position on the couch and rushed to the spare room, throwing open the door, scythe ready to attack whoever was responsible and to protect her Shinra. What she didn’t expect to see was Shizuo stepping back rapidly, staring at his hands in horror while Shinra busied himself with the bandaging and plaster application. 

The doctor was sweating bullets by the time he was done and Izaya’s now fully encased, left leg was now the same size as his torso. Celty had always thought the man too skinny, but now with this comparison, she realized in just what sort of shape the informant that she mostly despised, had been reduced to. 

“Okay.” Shinra exhaled, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand before looking back up at Shizuo. Celty could feel that at the moment she was being ignored. This was a new sensation for her, especially from Shinra, as he usually spends every waking moment of his being practically, if not literally, throwing himself at her. 

“We need to move to the next one.”

She watched detachedly, almost feeling as if in a clouded haze, as the blond moved to the opposite side of the bed; followed closely by the doctor with a cart loaded full of medical supplies.

“Ready?” the doctor bent over, repositioning the un-plastered leg into a more optimal position. Nodding silently when he was satisfied with the arrangement, he glanced up at the shell-shocked blonde.

“Shizuo, I need you now.” 

Celty trembled. She’d heard that tone only twice and neither time had been considered pleasant in her new memories. The blonde reacted as she'd expected; a fast start, apathy flashed over with slight fear in those mocha eyes, before solidifying into determination. 

‘So there is something that Shizuo is afraid of after all,’ ran through her conscience as she watched the lean man proceed to stand next to the significantly smaller medical professional.

“Same repeat as the other one. Position your hands here and here and when after the count of three, when I saw three, give it a push and a pull. We need a clean break so—“

“I will control myself Shinra.” Shizuo all but wheezed looking like he was on the verge of passing out and vomiting all at the same time.

“I trust you Shizuo.” Shinra stated firmly before both of them turned their full focus back to their unconscious patient. 

“One.” 

Shizuo took a deep breath. 

“Two.”

Celty watched his large hands clench and spasm as they took to their designated locations.

“Three.”

She ran, the resounding snap echoing loud and clear through her shadowy being as the headless rider wrenched open the door leading to the connecting balcony. Not caring about the fact that there was now a danger section due to Shizuo’s earlier actions, she hurled herself full speed into the railing, bending gracelessly over the metal as she thought to herself that if she had her head, she would have for certain screamed. She couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t stop shaking, trembling, vibrating, quaking. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. The amount of pain she had witnessed in that room for three different people, one of which she has never even cared for, was too much. It was too much. It was too much. It was too much. It was too much. It was too much.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Oh. Looks like Celty had an errand to run.” Shinra whispered without even glancing away from his work when the soft whiny of a horse floated to his ears. 

Over, under, over, under, over, under, over, under. The repetitive pattern kept the blood of the underground physician from boiling over. 

Over, under, over, under, over, under, over, under…legs broken in three places badly healed. Full recovery: probability low.

Over, under, over, under, over, under, over, under…clear signs of restraint in multiple positions, most likely while the bones were still broken.

Over, under, over, under, over, under, over, under…lips stitched most likely while patient was awake. Eyes were stitched at a later time, also while patient was awake. 

Over, under, over, under, over, under, over, under, plaster, tape, seal, set and immobilize leg. Finished…clear signs of repeated forced entry to the rectum. Multiple forced entries at the same time…plausible. 

Shizuo’s head snapped up at the sound of a loud crash, watching silently as the shined silver and sterilized white of the bandages reflected off each other as they all clattered to the floor. Hovering over the mess in an otherwise, painfully clean room, was a panting doctor, brownish grey bangs obscuring his eyes from view. Neither of them said a word, just staring, but at the same time not staring at the oh so symbolic representation of their current mental state on the floor. 

Taking a deep breath, Shinra straightened himself into an all too rigid, too proper position for the otherwise playful man before crouching down and starting to pick up the clutter. Shizuo stayed in his corner, watching in silence, barely daring to breathe because he still couldn’t see the expression in his long time friend’s eyes. At this point, he didn’t know if even he wanted to. 

Arms full of the scattered equipment, the underground doctor stood once again into that too rigid posture and deposited the haul back onto the cart where they had come flying off with a single swing of his lab coat sleeve. 

Stand up, hold your posture, breathe, crouch, pick up, stand, and deposit: obvious signs of repeated struggle and a possible escape attempt. All met with cruel and uncalled for punishment. 

Stand up, hold your posture, breathe, crouch, pick up, stand, and deposit: blunt force trauma to the head. Initial injury that instigated disappearance…possible.

Stand up, hold your posture, breathe, crouch, pick up, stand, and deposit: severe dehydration and malnutrition. No signs of nasal feeding tube…implications of such conditions clear with extensive scarring and damage over lip wounds. 

Stand up, hold your posture, breathe, crouch, pick up…there was nothing left to pick up.

The room once again descended into that suffocating silence save for the still too rapid, too irregular flutter of the EKG machine. 

“I’m going to stay with him for the next 24 hours to make sure his condition remains stable.” Shinra stated, remaining still in his crouched position over where the tools had once been. 

Shizuo didn’t answer because it felt as if for the most part, the doctor was talking to himself. Glancing down to his hands, the images and sensations of holding those too slim limbs, those all too fragile bones that for him, already felt like snapping a twig off a branch. The fact that he snapped them himself with what amounted to just his little finger’s strength, bombarded his mind, forcing himself to drop his head back into his knees and take a deep, calming breath. He could have done that to Izaya easily when he was…better. How many heavy objects had he thrown at the flea? How many of those objects had actually hit him? How many times did the flea just get up and keep on laughing only to have to come to this room in secret to let Shinra know that he was in fact injured? How many times had he actually done lasting damage to the unconscious raven?

“Shizuo,” Shinra whispered, breaking him out of his thoughts. He found himself raising his eyes, only to be met with the sharp gleam of a scalpel filling his vision with its promise of pain and lasting damage. Neither parties said a word. Only one of them holding the surgical instrument with expertise precision while the other stared down the handle of that blade unflinchingly even as that blade came within mere millimeters of his right eye ball. 

“Why aren’t you stopping me?” Shinra finally said, pressing the knife against the blonde’s bottom eyelid. Still, Shizuo made no sign of movement, hands still securely clasped around his knees in a posture that was so unfamiliar to him, that his knees were starting to ache and his elbows were starting to cramp. Just shrugging his shoulders felt as if he was hefting an entire building upwards which even for him, was a stretch of the imagination.

At the sight of the shrug, Shinra pressed down onto the blade, drawing a small trickle of blood that flowed down the ex-bartender’s cheek like a tear track. Still the other did not move a muscle, not even a small flinch that registered the pain that there was a very sharp knife meant to flay the tissue, muscles, and vessels of the human body right beneath a very important part of his sensory organs. 

“I know your eyes don’t build up that same resistance as the rest of your muscles and it will not heal. Therefore, if right now I simply flick my wrist, I will permanently blind you in one if not both of your eyes. So I will ask you again Shizuo, why aren’t you stopping me?”

“Because I’m sure you have every reason to kill the monster sitting in front of you.” Shizuo breathed out. 

Honey brown met grey solidly as the fortissimo, capable of tearing down the entire structure beneath both of their feet and the underground doctor, the only one really capable of fully subduing, maiming and murdering the beast that sat in front of him remained separated only by the mere inches of the blade. 

Shinra gave a disbelieving blink when he heard the statement, still holding the scalpel where it was, fingers in fact tightening on the grip rather than loosening causing the pressure to increase and the trickle was now becoming more of a steady flow. Still, Shizuo showed no signs of feeling pain or removing the very obvious threat away from himself. 

“Why would you say that?” the doctor finally choked out in response. He knew he wasn’t going to get an answer but it was still enough for him to see Shizuo finally move, only to lean back slightly, not enough to remove the blade fully from his lower eye lid, and bare his neck. The answer was clear. Put this mad dog down. 

Shinra stumbled back, stunned, the blade falling back, still gripped tightly in his hand that now hung limply at his side before being let go completely to fall uselessly onto the ground. He turned back without a word while Shizuo eyes tracked him to opposite side of the room. The doctor grabbed a chair and then bodily heaved it across the room to the side of Izaya’s bed, before dropping into it like a boneless rag doll. He was so tired. They were both so tired. One white, shaking hand reached out to hover over the unconscious one of his patient’s hesitating to touch over the multitude of wire and needle that stuck themselves into those delicate veins before gently placing itself over it. The slight whimper from the informant and the responding twitch had Shizuo ripping himself from the floor to stand and Shinra pulling back as if electrocuted. Again, the room descended into the almost frightening normal state of suffocating silence as both parties once again focused on the sleeping figure in the bed. 

“Do you hate him?” Shinra said so lowly that had Shizuo had to strain his ears to catch it. He honestly at first didn’t even know if it had been truly spoken until it was repeated, stronger this time but still with a shaking voice. They were both so tired.

“Do you hate him Shizuo?” Shinra asked, not bothering to look at the ex-bartender, just staring forlornly at the flea on the bed while fighting the ever present tremors that were beginning to work their way into his shoulders.

Still, Shizuo did not answer. He didn’t know how. After everything the flea had done to him ever since he had met him, he didn’t know if he could ever quite describe the feeling as hate. Hate for him is dark and given the fact that his strength instilled fear in the people around him that he knew and didn’t know, he didn’t need hate to darken his already fairly contradictory existence. 

“Do you hate me for introducing the two of you?” Shinra spat out so fast that Shizuo actually physically stumbled backwards. 

Did he hate Shinra? Did he hate the flea? Did he hate anyone? More often than not, people pissed him off but he never hated them for it. Did he even know what hatred felt like? 

Moving to stand next to the white coat to look down at the unconscious informant, only visible now from a heavily bandaged neck upwards while the rest of his body lay in ruins, rubble leftovers of what was once been a lean, rapid fire figure that could, even on the worst of days, challenge him while laughter and roars rang out in the streets of an all too exasperated Ikkebukuro. Shizuo decided that yes, he now for the first time in his life can confirm that he knows what hatred feels like. 

However, it was in no way directed towards the doctor that now sat slumped at his side, silent tears cascading down both of his cheeks ignored, while his hands fisted themselves tightly into his pants. It wasn’t even directed at the flea. The realization hit him like a blow. He had never hated the flea. He had a great dislike for the man because of all the trouble that he’d caused him over the years and he really did prefer it if he stayed the hell out of Ikkebukuro and stopped messing with the people here just trying to live their lives. But he had never in fact hated the man. To be fully truthful with himself, the chases usually left him feeling less stressed out and peaceful for the remaining part of the day even if during the whole process, his blood was boiling and he could very well be capable of murder. And yet, while he himself was capable of and he had on more than one occasion caught the chance to kill the flea, he had never taken it. They had lived through it in relatively one piece to fight and chase each other another day. But now…what those people did to him…the way he had “woken up”…the way he acts now…was it even the flea?

“Shizuo,” Shinra stated, reminding him that he was not the only one in the room and that he had been clenching his fists so hard that his nails were drawing blood from his palms that now  
ran onto the floor, staining the carpet with its crimson color. How fitting, blood on the carpet with a lifeless scalpel off to the side. They were both so tired. 

“Answer my question.” Shinra hung his head, tears now dripping onto his fists, sliding down and wetting his pant legs. “Answer my question Shizuo. Do you—“

“No.” Shizuo found himself saying. “No I don’t hate either of you. I don’t think I would have ever even known what hatred was if not for the people who did…this.” He uselessly hovered his hand over the same one that the doctor had just touched with an obviously negative response. 

“That’s good.” Shinra sighed, eyes focusing on the distance now between Shizuo’s large paw and Izaya’s slender digits. The atmosphere there, despite there being no actual contact was like live-wire. 

On Shizuo’s end, after everything he’s seen, the logical part of him was telling him not to touch the injured person. But the gut instinct that he runs on most of the time screamed at him to close the distance and initiate the contact. After all, the flea had reached out to him earlier. He could still feel the feather light caress of those fingers against his even now bare chest, the way those eyes had fought through their exhaustion and fear to show him even a slight glimmer of joy. And then, Shizuo found himself chuckling. 

“Oi, Shizuo!” Shinra snapped his gaze fully to the bartender as he watched the man drop his hand, gently onto the pale one against the sheets. The flea didn’t flinch. If anything, the beeping of the still present heart monitor evened itself out a bit and the small furrow between those dark brows eased. Shizuo kept chuckling. 

“It’s just like him.” The blonde muttered. Shinra cocked his head, confused as he watched the blonde fold himself down next to the bed, hand now interlaced gently between the other's digits, careful still to bypass the wires and IVs.

“Shizuo…”

The bartender continued, gently smiling to himself as he watched the rise and fall of the butterfly chest in front of him, “He smiled when he saw me.”

“Huh?”

“The stupid flea smiled when he saw me. He opened his eyes, touched me, and then smiled.” Shizuo kept chuckling even when he felt his own eyes begin to water. 

Shinra’s eyes widened. 

For the first time in years, hell decades even, the strongest man in Ikkebukuro allowed himself to cry.


	7. Inhuman Inventions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What a human thing to do, creating something not human to deal with things that are all too natural for the darker side of human nature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone. Sorry for the super late update but writer's block has been hitting me with a frying pan repeatedly. I'm working on this one as well as Side to Side which is a multi-chapter fiction, but the way I posted it it doesn't let me change the chapter setting. Anyways, enjoy the new chapter. I may be a while before the next update but I will try to keep it going. These two are going to be the death of me but oh how I love them.
> 
> Happy Thanksgiving,
> 
> Inumaru Higurashi

_It sat in front of the door that had taken it to the surface. It had tried to open it again but it wouldn’t open._

_‘Guess that road right now is closed,’ it thought to itself._

_Sitting back and staring out into the abyss, it went over all that it had been able to see and do in just a short span of time._

_For one, it had been able to see again. There had been more colors other than just the red, black, and yellow it had become so used to in its previously isolated world. There had been that soft beeping noise that it still didn’t know the source of. It had also been able to move its mouth for the first time since its birth without the usual burning pain that screeched through its mind._

_But the main thing was…it had met the monster. The deep voice that trembled through its broken frame, those strong arms that held it down but didn’t hurt, and that bright yellow hair, all of which came with that overflowing warmth. It wished it had been able to stay with the monster just a little longer before having to come home. It wanted to—._

_“Don’t get too attached,” came a statement laced with steel that sent it whirling around, losing its balance and falling onto its butt. That same beautiful person was outside of his door again, but this time, the door did not disappear, just merely stayed in the background, open, revealing a nearly blinding grey of the interior. It couldn’t see anything that was inside that room._

_“I said don’t get too attached.” That person said, walking over to tower over its prone frame. On instinct, it curled into itself, closing its eyes and raising its arms over its head and face, bracing for the blows that it knew would send it reeling._

_However, none came. When it dared to open its eyes, it found itself face to face with the ruby gems of its beautiful person. The surprise sent it scampering backwards until it collided with the door to the surface, thus cutting off the remainder of its escape route. That person meanwhile just stayed in his squatted position, looking over at it with a slight tilt of his head and slight…sadness in the glimmer of his beautiful eyes. Neither of them moved, and neither of them said a thing. It’s not as if it could speak any ways. What was speaking? What was speaking?_

“Look at me.”

_That deep rumbling growl resonated through its mind, followed by another flash of that lovely warmth._

_“I said don’t get attached.”_

_Suddenly that person was in front of him again, red eyes glaring down at it like the dirt it knew it was but that edge of anger had worn off. Instead, it seemed as if the person was apologetic and a slight bit…sad. Why was this beautiful person sad? It wasn’t anything that the person should be sad about._

_That person then crouched in front of it again, leaving it nose to nose with him resulting in it jerking back, slamming its head against the door to the surface with a loud bang. The sound echoed through the space even caused the person in front of it to wince._

_“Well I’m sure that must have hurt,” he laughed bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. It thought that this person truly was just like an overgrown child. It flinched once more when that person reached a hand out towards its face. Surprised once again, the hand froze halfway through his reach, hovering awkwardly in the space between the two of them. Then, ever so slowly, the hand returned to his owner. It watched the whole process with wide eyes, desperately trying to still the tremors racing through its frame. Neither of them said a word for a bit until that beautiful person let out a sigh and sat down across from it, crossing his legs and balancing his chin on his fist. Then he smiled, that same broken, terrifying smile that had it curling up further against the door. How it wished that the door would open and swallow it once again. How it wished that the door would open and send it back to the monster._

_“I SAID DON’T GET ATTACHED!” That person shouted, shooting forward in an instant, slamming his fist on the door right above its head._

_“That monster is mine. That monster is mine. That monster is MINE. No one can have my monster…not even,” crouching low and bringing his face right in front of it, that beautiful person leaned forward and suddenly…their lips connected._

_Waves after waves of confusion, bewilderment, anger, fear, and frustration crashed into it. It couldn’t tell which ones were the ones that it was feeling and which ones were the ones coming from that person. What was this? What was this? What was this? WHAT WAS THIS?!_

_Using its residual strength, it shoved hard right into that person’s chest forcing him away and breaking the connection. What was that? What was that? What was that? What was that? WHAT WAS THAT?!_

_It held its hand to its lips. WHAT HAD THAT BEEN?!_

_“It’s called a kiss.” That person said nonchalantly, wiping his own lips with the back of his hand. “I’m not surprised that you don’t know what it is as you have never experienced it before.”_

_It didn’t understand. It didn’t understand. It didn’t understand. It didn’t understand. It didn’t understand._

_“I personally don’t understand it myself as I haven’t been much of a fan for relations of the physical kind even before you were here, but there had to be a way to stop you from thinking about him.”_

_Ah, this person meant the monster. The monster that had yelled, the monster that had held it, the monster that had taken it away from its birth place, the monster that had kept it warm._

_“SHUT UP!”_

_It flinched bodily, curling back up against the door as it truly had no place to run. The person was angry. The person was angry. The person was angry. Angry was never good. Angry was always bad. Angry always meant that it was going to hurt and it was going to hurt a lot. It didn’t want to hurt._

_“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP!”_

_It looked at that person as they began to bang their fists uselessly into the black floor. To be honest, did a floor even exist in this realm? Something did after all because they had to be standing on something and the doors had to be on something as well._

_“Look at me now. I’m even starting to talk like and act like the brute. How I hate him. I hate him so much.” Then that person snapped their eyes up to it. “And you…why do you have to exist? You are such a human thing, such an inhumanly human thing to be.”_

_It didn’t understand but it seemed as if that beautiful person was starting to shatter in the weight of its birthplace. After all, this person had to be protected and the environment it was in right now was far from being the pristine location of his room. He needed to go back to his room. It needed to help him back into his room._

_Using the door for balance, it found itself wobbling to its feet. Walking slowly over the huddled figure, it hesitantly reached out and slid a hand gently over their shoulder. It found the texture of the jacket to be fairly soft but cold. This person was so cold. It pulled away quickly from the cold prompting the person to look up. Again, sadness tainted those ruby red orbs. A pale hand, so similar and yet at the same time different to its own, reached up and rested itself upon its cheek. It couldn’t help the flinch at the contact._

_“I won’t hurt you,” the person whispered. “I won’t ever hurt you so you don’t have to be afraid of me.”_

_It shook its head. It wasn’t afraid of this person. It just couldn’t control what its body does. Touch for it had always been pain…expect for when it had come the monster. But this person seemed to get angry every time it thought about the monster so it once again focused its mind on helping the person to their feet. Slowly and steadily they two of them were standing, the person leaning heavily against it while it felt its brows furrow in concentration at the strain of caring its precious cargo._

_“Look at the pair of us.” The person had his eyes covered by the raven bangs, leaving only a mouth visible. The mouth was currently pulled into a grim line as it seemed to be a battle for him to move his legs along with its legs as they slowly made it over to his open door. “A god amongst my lovely humans and a generated inhuman psyche.”_

_Suddenly, it found itself being thrown to the floor and the cold, cold hands pinning him down as that person bore down on him._

_“I never did finish what I was saying earlier before I decided to give you that disgusting act of a kiss,” he snarled, all jagged teeth and broken lines. It trembled, floored at the sudden change of mood._

_“That monster is mine. That monster has been, is, and will forever be mine and I won’t let anyone take him away from me.”_

_A swift backhand to the face sent it reeling as it was quickly followed by another and another and another. The person meanwhile just laughed, and laughed, and laughed._

_It hurt. Please stop. It hurt. He had said he wouldn’t hurt it. He said he would never hurt it. Why? Why? Why? Why? It hurt._

This cunt likes the pain.  
Look at him, getting off on this fucked up shit.  
What a masochistic bitch.  
Give him more. I like the way he squirms under me with this disgusting lewd body of his.  
Hurt him more.  
Cut him more.  
Beat him more.  
Fuck him harder. I want to hear him squeal.

Now hold still because I promise you, this will you a lot more than it will hurt me.

_A scream threw it out of its thoughts. The slapping had stopped. The laughter had stopped. The screaming kept going._

_Propping itself blearily up onto its elbows, it looked up to see that person a few inches away from the front of their door, tearing their hands through their hair, doubled over on their knees and screaming. It sprang into action when it saw bits of their arms begin to flake off into nothingness._

_NO!! This person has to be protected. The darkness cannot have this person._

_Running forward, it wrapped its arms around that person’s slim waist and heaved. Its entire body rocked dangerously, the darkness growling threateningly to collapse around them and its own breath leaving it in one large whoosh. But still it heaved. It had to save this person. It had to save this person. It had to save this person. This person cannot disappear. This person cannot disappear._

_Gasping, and panting, it heaved and pushed with all that it could until finally, that person was fully behind their door, basking in the glory of the blinding grey light. It watched in awe and relief as the flakes of darkness on their arms began to fade and disappear. They were fully healed when the door began to close. With the final crack remaining, it met those red eyes that had been hidden behind the dark bangs and shuddered. So much agony, so much anger, and so much…hopelessness bounced between them before finally, the door closed and vanished, severing their connection for the time being._

_It sat still for what felt like an eternity._

_Finally, sighing to itself, it made its way back over to the other door, the door to the surface. Trying the handle again, it wasn’t surprised that it still wouldn’t budge. The road up there was closed to the both of them right now. It took a few steps back and sat down, cross-legged in front of the rich mahogany woodwork and resigned itself to the wait. After all, it wasn’t as if it was doing anything that it hadn’t done a million times before. Sit, wait, pain…no…no more pain. Now it was sit, wait, and go up to that place where the monster was and warmth. There was warmth waiting._

_Taking a deep breath, it waited._

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The night was awful. Izaya’s body seized within two hours after his legs had been reset sending Shinra into a frenzy with making sure that the flea didn’t choke on his tongue or possible vomit. Shizuo had been in charge of pinning the bony body to the bed to make sure that he didn’t hurt himself further. That seizure was followed but another, and another. By the time the fourth came around, Shizuo was just about ready to collapse and sleep for centuries while Shinra was out of his mind with worry, sweat pouring down his brow as he hurried to balance more IVs and medicine bags around the other wirings and tubes. Shizuo’s head hurt just looking them all. When the fourth seizure finally passed, Izaya’s heart crashed. 

“SHIZUO MOVE!” Shinra shouted, causing Shizuo’s already exhausted body to throw itself violently off the bed as Shinra ran and nabbed out a AED out of god knows where, the charging current humming through the air. 

The cover was ripped off the flea as Shinra hurried to place all the correct patches in their designated places. 

“CLEAR!” 

Zap! The flea’s already broken body almost spasmed off the bed when the current shook it to the core. The ex-bartender watched the scene as if in a haze of static while the doctor bent over the glass chest and began compressions. Again the humming of electricity filled the air.

“CLEAR!” 

Zap! This time, Izaya’s head lurched up before landing on the left, closed eyes facing Shizuo, watching him from beneath those lids, freezing Shizuo’s being in place. Will those eyes ever open again? Will they ever look at him again? Will he ever see that same spark of amusement laced with contempt? Will he ever be able to glance into those reds and know that that same color raced through his own veins during their chases?

“CLEAR!”

Zap! That head threw itself back the other way and the connection was lost but the questions kept racing through his mind. Right then and there, the flea was dead. The flea was dead. The flea was dead. Then why was it that all he felt was a sense of bone crushing dread with a scream wishing to rip his throat raw. 

“CL--!”

“IZAYA!”

Zap! Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…

The collective sigh heaved through the room was like a breath of fresh air for both occupants. Shinra busied himself once again with making sure to triple check all the medicines, the breathing tube, the IV lines and the other four billion things hooked up to the unconscious man. Shizuo collapsed back onto the floor in an exhausted heap while he rested his elbows and forehead on the edge of the bed. Shinra was prattling to himself but all that ran through the blonde’s mind was that the flea was alive. The flea was alive. The flea was alive. Izaya was alive.

“SHIZUO!” the shout jerked him back into awareness from where he hadn’t even realized he had begun to doze off. 

He was so tired. 

Raising his head up felt as if he was raising a lead brick. His eyes throbbed, his head hurt, the room was blurry and parts were beginning to spin. He really felt like he was going to vomit. 

“What Shinra?” He managed to grind out. The flea was alive. The flea was alive. The flea was alive. Izaya was alive so what is it that the doctor needed him to do now? What could he do? He couldn’t do anything expect for more hurt as flashes of the bone breaking moments coursed through his already bleary mind.

“I called you three times and you didn’t respond.” Shinra heaved. It was then that the blonde could tell that whatever level of exhaustion he was currently experiencing; the doctor was feeling it two fold. Dark circles framed grey eyes, hands trembled, sweat still poured down from his brow ignored as his chest heaved in an attempt to steady his gasping breaths. 

“Yeah sorry.” Shizuo blinked a few times to clear the stars forming in his vision. 

He was so tired. 

“It’s fine.” Shinra did a last once over before he too collapsed back into his chair. “I was just trying to tell you that if you wanted to sleep, you can have my room or the couch, or even Celty’s futon because I don’t think she’ll be coming back for the night.”

“Shinra,” Shizuo began only to be cut off with a sharp flick of the doctor’s wrist upwards.

“It wouldn’t be good for the both of us to be utterly exhausted. I’ll take the first watch and I’ll come wake you in about six hours and you can watch him until dawn.”

“But—“

“Get some sleep.” The snap came and clamped the blonde’s mouth shut with a snap. That was the first time he had ever heard of such a tone from Shinra and his being knew that if he tried to argue, he was going to lose more than just his eyeball.

“Fine.” He growled and moved to stand again, slowly detangling his hand from that of the unconscious informant. There was no response this time and honestly, the blonde really didn’t expect one, nor did he want one. Giving one last glance over to the exhausted doctor, he opened the door to the room and stepped out into the dark living room. 

‘Guess Celty is still out,’ ran through the ex-bartender’s thoughts as he glanced out onto the empty balcony, wincing slightly when he saw the mangled portion of railing before dropping himself down with a heavy thud onto the couch. It was then everything hit him as if he was being swept under by a tsunami wave. All the emotions, all the actions, all of the things he had seen that he had never wanted to see smacked him at full force and he felt himself fall over and be pulled under the torrent of darkness.


	8. Irony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somethings just don't make sense...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO!!! I'm not dead I promise. I just have been hit with MASSIVE WRITER'S BLOCK!! Also the past month has been INSANE!! I just quit medical school in China and moved back to the US and am dealing with the shit show that is my family so I apologize for keeping all of you lovely readers in suspense for so long. THIS WORK IS BEING CONTINUED!!! I just have to readjust my entire life. Ah well, enough of my ranting and let's get on to the main course. NEW CHAPTER!! Unbetaed so excuse any and all errors

_He was running. When he opened his eyes that’s what he knew he was doing. He couldn’t see his body moving but he knew he was running. He could feel the breeze in his hair. He could hear his breaths begin to pant at the perceived exertion. He could feel his arms moving in their designated swings as an extension to the motion. Now the only question was…why was he running? There was nothing but white noise and empty space in the distance and yet still he was running. Something in his body and mind kept telling him that he had to keep moving, keep running faster even. If he didn’t keep running, if he didn’t get there, if he didn’t reach whatever it was that he couldn’t even see, it would disappear and for whatever reason, it would leave his existence permanently damaged and lacking._

_‘Just keep moving,’ he muttered to himself._

_‘Have to keep going. Have to get there. Have to reach it. Have to touch it. Have to make it mine’_

_But what was it?!_

_He felt inklings of the usual anger begin to prickle in the back of his mind and resonate with his still swinging arms. He was running yes, but to what? To what? To what? To what? To what? WHAT WAS HE RUNNING TO?!_

_He felt the roar tear from his throat as his right hand entered his vision, reaching out in front of him into that unbearable emptiness for something. There has to something, anything, just let him touch it. Let him reach his destination. Let him feel something solid close around his fingers._

_Suddenly there was something. There was something standing right in front of him. There was something right in range of his hand. There was a figure right where he could close his fingers around them with just one extra step._

_But he was going too fast. He was reaching too hard. He was too angry. He couldn’t control his body. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t STOP?!_

_The figure in front of him shattered upon impact without even the slightest decrease to his momentum. His traitorous body just kept moving._

_‘No! TURN AROUND! STOP!’ He screamed at himself but still he kept going back into the never-ending emptiness._

_‘TURN AROUND! TURN AROUND! TURN AROUND!’_

_He kept going. He felt his vision turn to the back which meant at least he had managed to get his head to swivel in the slightest._

_Shards of red fluttered helplessly in the air before reforming to give rise to a crystalline eye in the scattered form of a figure. That eye was downcast, watching as its own being struggled to piece itself back together after the destruction wrought upon it all with a frightening sense of detachment and passiveness. It then spun its ruby gaze on him and suddenly, he felt his world lurch sideways and the ground beneath his feet being pulled away. He was falling. He was falling and he couldn’t stop. He was falling and he couldn’t reach. He was falling and he couldn’t turn back and help the thing he had broken._

_No, it was not a thing. He hadn’t shattered a thing. The thing was not a thing. That “thing” was a person. That thing was..._

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“IZAYA!!!”

“GAHHHHH!!” came the responding shout. From his bleary vision, he could make out the flailing flutter of a white cloth. A loud crash resounded after the accompanying yell caused Shizuo to wince. 

When everything case to focus, the sight that greeted him would on a normal basis, draw a small smirk from his usual permanent scowl. But at the currently moment, it mostly drew guilt and concern for the freshly stirred blonde as he leapt to his feet to help his fallen friend.

“Shinra!” Shizuo stuck out his hand and pulled his friend up onto his feet.

“Remind me next time to wake you with a pole.” Shinra said, rubbing the back of his head from where it had made contact with the fairly abused coffee table. 

“Yeah, sorry.” Shizuo grumbled. Getting up to stand he and the doctor swapped places, the other dropping himself with a heavy sigh onto the couch.

“At least you replaced the need for a space heater.” Shinra teased, snuggling down into the cushions that still contained traces of the blonde’s body heat.

“I may replace your need for a life as well.” Shizuo growled earning a breathy chuckle from his childhood friend. 

“Before you do that you may want to consider how romantic it is that the first thing you shout as you wake up is the name of your most loved one.”

“Yeah, I wh—AT?!”

“Izaya!” Shinra gestured dramatically with the accompaniment of his arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders to cradle his slender form. “Ah, that form of devotion gives me a new goal to reach for with my own beloved Celty. Imagine as the love I feel for her bursts forth from my—GACK!!”

Shizuo’s right hand somehow found itself wrapped around his said friend’s throat and proceeded to wring it. 

“S-so-r-r-rr-ry,” Shinra sputtered, being shaken back and forth in the unbreakable grip of one Shizuo Heiwajima.

The shaking was as short lived as the sincerity behind the apology for with the mention of the informant’s name, Shizuo’s mind spun back. Back to the images of the broken form, the resetting of those paper bones beneath his hands, and the horrible flat noise of the EKG. The dream ran strong in his mind as that single, crystalline gem spun its gaze to him, floating over the shattered dust of its previous form. 

“You as go see him now.” Shinra whispered, snapping the blonde from his haze of images. 

“Wha—?”

“You can go see him now.” Shinra spoke again, stronger this time as he gently pried Shizuo’s fingers from his throat so that he could collapse bodily back onto the couch. He seemed so small, as if the white of his lab coat would drown him in all of its folds. Given all the abuse he had doled out, whether intentionally or unintentionally, onto the underground doctor over these past years…had he always been so small?

“I came out here to wake you up actually because it is your turn to take watch. He’s stable.” Shinra chuckled to himself as he began to tilt sideways. Shizuo’s arm automatically rose to catch the falling man, helping to gently lower him to the couch. 

“He’s stable Shizuo. He’s stable,” grey eyes closed as the hushed whisper lulled the doctor to his own personal dreamland. Shizuo could only hope that they were more peaceful than his own. Tucking Shinra’s arms and legs into what he felt would be a comfortable sleeping position, the blonde left to retrieve a blanket from the bedroom. Removing the other’s slippers, he covered the unconscious form before removing his glasses and placing them neatly on the coffee table. 

“Take it easy Shinra.” Shizuo huffed, looking down to the sleeping form. “After all, I can’t throw you for being a villain if you are too tired to become one.”

Shinra only muttered and turned his head into the couch cushions. 

Sighing, Shizuo eyed the closed door to the spare room where the faint beeping of the EKG was muffled behind the wood.

Everything once again flashed through his mind causing his knees to buckle, forcing him to grab hold of the door frame. He could swear he saw the door handle grow teeth and a tongue before hissing at him to fuck off. Yeah, he was pretty sure he saw that. Taking a few steadying breaths, Shizuo gripped the handle, twisted, and swiftly stepped into the room before his body had enough time to betray him and send him gracelessly crashing to the floor. The sight that greeted him was to be expected, but the atmosphere of peace that surrounded it was mocking.

On the bed lay Izaya, skin paler than even the white sheets beneath his body, his fragile chest rising up and down to the butterfly beat of his heart. The oxygen mask placed over his face fogged just the slightest with each tiny breath. Wires ran into those skinny arms, so many so that Shizuo was surprised that they all fit. Now scrubbed clean of the grime, the blue of the veins was sharply visible on the surface giving Izaya an almost otherworldly appearance. Closed lids rested peacefully over ruby eyes, now free from that horrible black thread where Shizuo could see just the barest flicker of movement underneath those lids. The blonde couldn’t help the slight grin that tugged at his lips. 

‘Wonder what the flea is dreaming about,’ ran through his mind as he slumped himself down into the vacant chair by the raven’s bedside. Silence hung comfortably in the room as Shizuo watched the smaller breath, sleep, and dream. 

He’s alive. Shizuo reached forward hesitantly when he saw a slight crease in the dark brows. 

He’s alive. He gently he brushed his fingers along the edge of a translucent hand. There was a slight twitch in the dark brows as the heart monitor rose in just the slightest.

He’s alive. Slowly, he worked his hand beneath the other’s and closed his fingers. The brows eased. The monitor fully relaxed. Izaya continued endlessly through wherever his dreamland was taking him.

“What the hell flea,” Shizuo muttered, hanging his head as he felt the telltale signs of heat burning up through his cheeks and into the tips of his ears. “You’re not supposed to relax when it’s me.”

Still, the heart monitor’s steady rhythm, the constant dripping of the IV, and the even pants of the unconscious informant all stated to the contrary. Shizuo found himself being lulled back to sleep with the small flare of warmth in his palm from where his hand now held onto that of the informant’s securely. Memories of his dream still ran through his veins sending an unwelcome shudder of cold through his body.

[Sorry]

The sudden PDA entering his visual field nearly threw the blonde out of the chair had it not been for the last minute remembrance that he would take the occupant of the bed with him.

“Celty,” Shizuo breathed, running his free hand through his hair before rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Rapid clicking filled the air as Celty hurried with a response, her shadows puffing awkwardly. Shizuo was sure that if she had a head, she would be rapidly shaking it.

[I’m sorry. I thought you were sleeping in the room when I saw Shinra out on the couch]

She took a step up next to him to watch the sleeping raven with a frown clearly expressed in her non-existent features.

“Shinra said he was “stable” whatever that means,” the blonde muttered. “If tomorrow I wake up with a knife against my throat, I’ll pay for the window repairs.”

Celty quickly shook her neck and typed away.

[I doubt that will happen tomorrow. He should be asleep for a while.]

“Yeah.”

Neither of them mentioned the unspoken statement of whether or not the flea will wake up at all and what his state of mind will be. 

“You should have seen where I found him.” Shizuo finally whispered causing a small start from the black rider. When there was no response from the PDA, he continued.

“It was so dark. There was one lightbulb but still it was so dark. There was no noise but when there was, the sound echoed like from one of those old, annoying horror movies. The air was cold. It was so cold and damp. But the smell…it smelled worse than some of the dumps I’ve had to frequent when it comes to collecting debts and I thought…I thought that there was nothing filthier that I could ever see or smell in my life. And him…when I found him…there was just…”

A soft hand dropped itself onto his should and before the message placed itself in plain view of his face.

[I saw] It read and that was all it took before Shizuo dropped his head down into his arm, squeezing the barely warm hand that was in his as a fresh set of tearless sobs wracked his body. 

“Is it my fault?”

Celty reared back in surprise.

“Is it my fault for always wishing harm to him? I know I always say that I will kill him because I mean, he’s Izaya. He’s done so much and hurt so many people. It’s what he deserves right? To meet the consequences of what happens when you play with the lives of people like they are insects. He played with me all throughout high school and would never give me a break. He made me lose my job. He had me a disappointment to my brother. He always just gets on my nerves and never fails to remind me that I’m a…monster.” 

Shizuo finishes his rant with a sharp whisper cutting through the once again suffocating silence. Raising his head, he looked over at the Dullahan with eyes so dead that she had a hard time thinking that she didn’t accidentally hit him with her scythe. 

Celty stood to his side, shocked to such stillness that even her shadows were slowed. For once, she was at a loss as to just how to comfort her friend. The person that she didn’t really even like was already broken and with him, the person that she cared for most, second only to her “husband.” She took a deep breath and typed as fast as she could, shadowy fingers a blur over the keypad. She needed to get rid of those dead eyes. She never wanted to see those dead eyes ever again in her immortal life. 

When she finished she shoved the PDA violently into the blonde’s face.

[If Izaya knew you were this beat up over him…I think he would laugh and declare victory, spin around, and then call me to pick up your dead body]

Honey glazed eyes blinked once, then again, and then again before. Celty skin squirmed with panic. 

Blond hair flicked itself back and the bodyguard’s head snapped back as a large guffaw of laughter left his mouth followed by another until the tall, lean body was racked with the manic sound. 

[HEY!! SHIZUO!! CALM DOWN!!]

Celty waved her hands and PDA frantically in front of the man’s face. Great, she didn’t make him cry. SHE MADE HIM LOSE HIS MIND!!

After about 10 minutes of this continuous laughter, Shizuo finally calmed down enough to return his focus back to the sleeping informant, the glimmer in his eyes returning to its rightful place.

“Damn flea. Even hurt he still gets to me.” He sighed before looking at their currently joined hands. “But still, he is the one person who has never been afraid and now, calms down when he is with the one thing he declared to be wrong with the world. I mean…aside from Kasuka…who has ever been to sleep so peacefully knowing the Beast of Ikkebukuro is sitting at their bedside.”

[Shizuo…]

“It’s alright,” he sighed. “You don’t need to say anything more Celty. Thanks for everything. I know that you don’t really like him either…just not to the point of personal death wishes.”

[Not quite] Celty found herself silently chuckling. [Just wishing that he would find better hobbies]

“Yeah.”

[I’m going to get Shinra to bed. If he wakes up on the couch I know I won’t hear the end of how his undying love was not enough for me to consider sleeping the rest of my life beside him]

“Sounds just like him.” Shizuo snickered earning him what he was sure was an invisible glower before waving as she exited out the door. Turning back to face the sleeping flea, he rubbed the back of his neck easing the slight cricks just slightly. 

“Hey flea,” the ex-bodyguard awkwardly began. “Hurry up and wake up so I can kill you. My legs need the run and I’m dying for a smoke so just…wake up. Just hurry up and wake up.”

He never unlaced their hands as he waited for his mortal enemy to open his eyes once more.


	9. Bloodhounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so the hunt begins.

“FUCK!!!” The loud curse was followed by a series of clangs and crashes of breaking objects. 

“HOW THE FUCK DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?”

Two broken bodies laid curled on the floor, whimpering in agony as they listened to more chaos being produced around them. The darkness coated two figures in its menacing embrace, one standing tall over the agonized victims and a smaller one sitting on the floor watching all of the happenings without so much as a flicker of movement.”

“GIVE ME AN ANSWER!!”

Muted screams echoed off the dark walls as a kicks connected with the ribs of both prone figures consecutively. 

“TELL.ME.HOW.THE.FUCK.DID.YOU.MORONS.LET.THIS.HAPPEN?!”

“Enough,” a cold voice cut through the screaming, bringing about a deathly silence over the scattered surroundings. “Anymore and you’ll end up killing them before we get any useful information.”

“Tsk, you’ve always been the soft one.”

“And you’ve always been the messy one.”

“And what of it? It’s called knowing just how to have a little FUN!!” A resounding crack and a squeal punctuated the end of that sentence.

“Did I not just say that was enough.”

“And what are you—”

A rapid scuffle of movement sent the taller of the two shadows sailing across the room where he landed with a painful snap. 

“FUCK!!!”

“I said enough.” The smaller shadow unfolded itself to a standing position, cracking its neck and rolling its slender shoulders in the process. “You know I hate to repeat myself so stay there and don’t make me come break something else.”

Silence once again dominated the environment save for the raspy breaths of now three of the four parties involved. Slowly, the smaller shadow moved to stand an inch away from one of the writhing figures on the ground. Bending forward, it reached down to rip the duct tape off suffering soul’s mouth without so much as blinking when a pained yelp was released from the newly freed lips.

“So tell me Asanuma…just how did something like this happen.”

The chubby man with thick lips that now dripped red blinked up at his tormentor through swollen, tear filled eyes and began to wriggle with a desperation as if trying to run from death itself. A solid foot to the head stopped the movement as a moan ricocheted off the walls.

_“Please…please…,”_ Asanuma gasped. _“Please.”_

“How interesting.” The smaller shadow mused grinding his foot down harder into the skull ripping further shrieks from the chubby man below intermixed with his desperate pleas.

“Hey,” the taller shadow moved from where it had been throw and was now holding the smaller leg in a vice grip. “You were the one who said not to kill them.”

The two being glared at each other in steady silence interrupted only by the continued pleas that streamed from Asanuma’s swollen lips.

Finally, taking a deep breath, the smaller removed his foot from its perch while the taller stood, drawing to his full height next to his companion.

_“Thank you, thank you, thank you, th—”_

A swift kick from the smaller companion snapped the man’s neck to the side with a sickening crack as now both parties fell silent.

The taller rolled his eyes, noticeably wincing as he held the upper portion of his left arm and let his head fall up towards the ceiling. 

“Really,” the taller snarled. “You fucking break my arm, go on about not killing them and then do that.”

“He’s not dead.” The smaller deadpanned back, already moving over to the second unconscious boy, the one smaller in figure with short brown hair and a single silver ear piercing.

“Well he ain’t talking either so by your fucked up logic, it still doesn’t do us any good.”

The smaller simply shrugged and began to riffle through the unconscious boy’s hoodie pockets.

“Oi! Fucking listen when I’m talking to you.” 

Pausing for a few moments, the taller realized that the smaller had long since moved his attention elsewhere when his command went once again unheeded. Stomping over, he landed a rough kick straight to the other’s abdomen leaving the other doubled over and heaving for air.

Gasping in pain, the smaller shadow glowered up to his companion with the promise of death burning strong in his brown eyes. The taller just scoffed before kicking the unconscious boy over and retrieving the object in question from one of his back pockets.

“Give me your hand.”

The smaller remained glaring, gritting his teeth against a snarl threatening to rip out and made no sign of movement.

The taller rolled his eyes and grabbed the smaller up by his hair with his good arm, pulling his now cringing partner up until just his toes were touching the ground.

“That was payback for fucking breaking my arm. Remember, you may have the strength advantage between the two of us but there is still about a century between you and I in terms of you even hoping to survive a full fight with me.”

Throwing the smaller back into the dirt, the taller stomped over and delivered a swift stomp to the already abused abdomen. All the air went out of the smaller as sharp pants punctuated the stale air, desperately hoping for, but unable to obtain a full breath. 

“I won’t say it again,” the taller smirked, sharp white teeth glinting like jagged knifes through the darkness that was so all encompassing, “because after all I hate to repeat myself.”

“Bas…tard…” the smaller wheezed only to receive another stomp as his reward.

“Give me your hand.”

Their eyes met and the stalemate ensued as neither party were willing to break first. 

“Give.me.you.hand.” The boot ground down into the soft tissue of its victim who writhed and moaned beneath its unyielding pressure.

Slowly, a trembling hand held itself up in the air, palm facing up, only to be kicked aside with the accompanying laughter. 

“Gee, was that so hard?” the taller cackled, dropping the object instead right into the smaller’s face with a small thwack as the plastic hit the nose bone. The smaller moaned in response as the taller turned his back and began to walk towards the obliterated exit. 

“Make sure to burn the place down behind you. We don’t want the boss being any angrier than he is already going to be. I have to go fix the arm you broke.”

Throwing a casual wave over his shoulder, the taller vanished into the night. 

“I’ll kill him. The first chance I get I swear I will kill him.” The smaller ground out, dragging his body up off the ground and into a huddled seated position. Grabbing the discarded object, he quickly flicked it open and began to scroll through the contacts, the light of the phone illuminating his face as he read until he stopped on one particular set of texts.

Standing up, the smaller made his way to the exit; a maddening smile spreading over his twisted lips. 

"Don't worry Mr. Informant. I'll see you soon enough."

Snickering silently to himself as he pocketed the phone, he raised his eyes to the empty sky of the new moon. 

"You'll find that children are very persistent when it comes to retrieving their favorite toy."

Rattling steel echoed into the air the warehouse doors closed followed consecutively with the clattering of heavy steel chains. A small flame lit itself like a beacon into the night while its master walks away, almost bouncing with glee as their dark coat tails sway around their ankles. 

"No worries Mr. Informant," he continued to giggle to himself. "I'll be seeing you very soon indeed."

Raising his face up to the sky, the smaller shadow whispered into the wind, words slicing like bullets through glass leaving chaos in their wake.

“But first, I have a rat to catch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!!! As I promised I have no abandoned this story. Tomorrow is my birthday so I figured I had better share it with all of you lovely readers and give you an early unbirthday present.
> 
> It has just been a whirlwind of WOW!!! NEARLY 4 MONTHS?! HOLY CRAP!!! Thank you all for those of you who have stuck with me for so long. I have been reading all of your wonderful comments and they are always in the back of my mind inspiring me and pushing me to keep writing. And now finally, I have a NEW CHAPTER!!! TAKE THAT WRITER'S BLOCK!! 
> 
> Again, I am so sorry for the long delay between chapters. Things have been sorting themselves out slowly but surely. I am applying for Physical Therapy school this year so a lot of my time has been focused on getting all of my necessary materials and hours ready for that. Also...I GOT MARRIED!!! (my family doesn't know) But anyways...rant over for now and I'll see you with the next chapter now that the gears in my head have finally started to turn again. 
> 
> Love and love and love and more love,
> 
> Inumaru Higuarshi


	10. Pink and Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can voices really echo through the caverns of sleep without being lost?

Weeks went by and still there was no change in Izaya’s condition.

_“Shizuo be reasonable.” Shinra sighed, exhaustion and exasperation evident in his tone as he shoved the unmoving wall of probably human being that was the ex-bartender. “You can’t be here all the time. You have to get back to work.”_

_“Tom said he was fine said that I can take another week off.” Shizuo snarled back, holding his ground which in his case, meant standing still._

_“I know that Tom understands but you can’t be here all the time. What about your apartment, your life, your own food supply? The farthest you’ve gone away from that room has been to go outside to get a smoke or downstairs around the corner for a convenience store Bento.” Shinra continues to whine._

_With a final huff, the glasses wearing doctor stops and places his hands on his knees, panting as if he’d just run a marathon. Shizuo snorted, completely unfazed as he began to once more move to the patient room. A soft hand on his wrist stops him as a PDA is raised to his eye level._

_[Shinra is right Shizuo]_

_The blond blinks, waiting patiently as his closest friend pulls back to continue typing._

_[You can’t just put your life on hold and stop everything just for Izaya]_

_The blond raises an eyebrow upon reading this causing Celty to quickly pull away and thrust it back into his face at such rapid intervals of embarrassment that it left his eyes seeing stars._

_[I mean it’s just that you should definitely get out and get some air and walk around]_

_[Kasuka should have another movie coming out soon]_

_[I mean it’s not like I wouldn’t stay indoors for Shinra. I mean I have stayed indoors all the time for Shinra, well most of the time when he was hurt]_

_“CELTY!!! MY LOVE!!!”_

_Shizuo winced at the direct jab to the stomach the doctor received when he attempted to jump her from behind. The woman sure could throw a hit._

_Shaking her head and huffing her shadows into an upward billow, Celty straightened her shoulders and continued._

_[What I mean to say is, is just that he is not going to wake up anytime soon. Shinra will be taking good care of him and I will be here watching him.]_

_“I know—”_

_A sharp, pale hand cut off the rest of the sentence as the dullahan continued to type._

_[You are of course welcome by to come see us and to come see him at any point in time. It’s just not healthy for you to sit by his bedside all day and let your life fall by the wayside]_

_The unspoken statement of whether or not all the parties in the room even think that Izaya will not wake up again at all, hung heavily in the air._

_Heaving a large exhale, Shizuo nodded, earning him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder from his close friend._

_[We are here for you. We are here for him. Trust us]_

_“You know I trust you more than I’d trust that one.” Shizuo growled playfully jerking his head at his oldest friend who childishly stuck out his tongue before jumping back onto the fairy, crying and sobbing about how it was fine that no one trusted him as long as he had Celty._

_Shizuo smiled. The scene was all to domestic._

“And now here I am.” Shizuo sighed.

“What was that Shizuo?” Tom looked up at his coworker from where they were leaning on the brick wall, smoking behind a Wacdonald’s having just finished their lunch break.

“What?” The blonde blinked, snapping quickly back into reality.

“Earth to Shizuo.” Tom chuckled. “I didn’t take you for the type of be reminiscing in broad daylight.”

Shizuo, felt a small blush burn across his cheeks having realized that he had just been caught completely zoned out. Adjusting his sunglasses, he placed his cigarette into the envelope in his pocket, offering it out to Tom who did the same with a small thanks.

“Sorry Tom-san. It’s just that there’s been a lot on my mind lately.”

Tom sighed, gesturing with his hand for Shizuo to follow and that it was time for them to continue on their rounds. Both men, casually stuffed their hands into their pockets and continued their stroll to their next destination.

“Still no change huh.” Tom smiled sympathetically when he noticed the blonde stiffen beside him. Shizuo dropped his head and let his bangs cover his shades.

“No. No change.”

“I see.”

They continued on in companionable silence; finishing another two to three clients without much hassle. They had all been very agreeable, paying up before even being asked with the exception one paying the majority of it and promising for them to come back in two days for the rest of it. 

They still had two more to go before finishing the day and Tom already knew exactly where Shizuo was going right after they finished work. Honestly, he had been more than expecting to be rounding without the bartender for another two weeks. He remembered the somber tone in the usually boisterous ex-bartender when he had told him that he was coming back to work and wouldn’t need the extra week off. Tom of course agreed, but he knew that Shizuo had been anything but willingly come back. 

“You know,” the dreadlocked man finally spoke up. “I heard that people in comas can actually hear you when you talk to them. In some studies, it was shown that conversations sometimes were able to wake them up.”

“Huh,” Shizuo hummed in acknowledgement, still finding the pavement to be the most interesting thing in the world. 

“So maybe when you visit him tonight—”

“I wasn’t going to visit him.” Shizuo muttered all too hastily. That drew a small chuckle from his senpai which in return earned him a reproachful glare. 

Placing his hands up in a placating gesture, Tom smiled.

“When you go see him again, talk to him.”

Moving to stand in front of the other male, Tom reached up and placed a warm hand on his kouhai’s shoulder. 

‘He’s gotten so tall.’ He chuckled to himself inwardly. But seeing the raw pain and conflict into those all to honest brown eyes, brought a small, sad smile to his face. ‘He still hasn’t changed one bit. Always too caring, always too honest.’ Tom took a deep breath and continued. “He must be scared and he must be lost.”

Shizuo flinched hard at those words but Tom still held on tight.

“Right now Izaya is lost. He’s scared, and lost, and he’s been hurt worse than any of us can imagine. I never did like the man and I know for a fact you didn’t either. Otherwise, the property damage bills wouldn’t have nearly bankrupted our company every year since we started.”

Shizuo snorted but the pain in his eyes was starting to recede, filling once again with the gentle fire Tom was accustomed to.

“When you see him again, talk to him. See if you can taunt him back the way he would always taunt you across the city.”

“He was pretty damn good at that.” Shizuo growled.

Tom laughed bringing a wry smile from his partner as well. Turning back around and making a small show of rolling his shoulders, the dreadlocked man continued to walk ahead.

“What do you say we get these last two out of the way and call it a day.”

“Right.”  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

_It sat in front of the door to the outside for a long time. Sometimes it would run hesitant fingertips across its surface, shuddering at the all-encompassing warmth. Other times it would simply sit and stare, memorizing the texture of the wood and the patterns of the lines. But no matter how hard it twisted the knob, the door remained locked. And so it stayed and it waited, and it felt. Time never was really a concept for it as it was more than used to two times and two times alone: time of physical pain as those who hurt it would come with new and more inventive ways to make it squeal. And time of mental anguish as it shuddered alone in the cold, crying out for someone, anyone, anything to make the cold go away._

_Sometimes that beautiful person would be watching. Always it would be after a round of pain that left it shuddering and sobbing in a small ball, wondering, if it had enough sense left by the end of it, what it had done for this to happen. But that was it, the beautiful person would just watch. Watch as it writhed, watch as it cried, watch as it wordlessly begged. Just watching as it wordlessly pleaded for it to stop. Eventually, when it had no more shudders to give, no more tears to flow, and no more sounds to produce; the beautiful person would then walk away, closing the door behind him. It was okay with it. It never wanted to touch that beautiful person. It knew that it was tainted beyond measure and that beautiful person had to remain perfect._

_Something deep inside it clawed at the thought, telling it that that person was the furthest thing from perfect it would ever know. But it ignored the warning. It had to protect that beautiful person. No matter what._

_Sighing, it thudded its head against the sealed door. The door that had led to the monster. The door that was now so warm against its back. How it wished that the knob would turn._

_It picked at its…toes. Yes, they were toes. That’s what they were. They were toes. It poked them, jumping back a little when it saw them…wiggle. Yes, that’s it…wiggle. It poked them to have them wiggle again and again and again._

_Letting out a small huff of air, it kept poking its…toes and watching them…wiggle. The warmth again its back and the…wiggling of its toes._

_“Hey.” A gruff voice snapped it out of its new found game, sending its form into full rigidity. Voices, voices were never good. Why was there a voice? This was its safe place. Why was there a voice in its safe place? It looked around desperately, seeing nothing but the empty darkness of its birthplace. Where was that voice?_

_“Ah…I’m not really good at this at all.” The voice continued. It pulled its knees closer to its form and buried its face in them. Please don’t hurt it. Please don’t hurt it. Whoever they were, please leave it alone._

_Suddenly, it felt a large warm hand on its shoulder. Jerking its head up, it was met with a soft, gold orb of light. Its jaw dropped as it let out a gasp so close to a sound. In the background, the gruff voice continued._

_“Tom-san was telling me that you can still hear what I am saying even though you’re…” the voice paused and hesitated for a bit, “you’re asleep right now.”_

_It continued to stare at the golden light in front of it. Slowly, the light began to float away and the hand on its shoulder moved down and onto its hand._

_“He said to talk to you. That maybe if I talked to you, you would wake up to tell me to shut up.”_

_The golden light floated further and the hand in its hand pulled just slightly. It pulled back. It didn’t want to leave the door. It didn’t want to do anywhere. It was…_

_“He said that you are scared.”_

_It was scared. It was so scared. The golden light stayed close though even though the feeling of the hand was gone. It stared at the light and the light didn’t go. The light just stayed, nestled into its own little place in the infinite blackness that had been its home for as long as it could remember._

_“He said that you were scared and lost.”_

_It stared at the light and the light waited. It stared at the light and the light waited._

_“Now that I think about it, the thought of you being lost is ridiculous.”_

_It stared at the light and the light waited. It stared at the light and the light waited._

_“I can’t even count how many times I got lost chasing after you. The worst was back in high school when I still wasn’t that familiar with this city.”_

_It stared at the light and the light waited. It stared at the light and the light waited._

_“It took me four hours, four stinking hours to find my way back home. My mother was furious and I got sent to my room with no dinner. Kasuka had been nice enough to do my math homework for me even though he was two grades below me. He has always been the smarter one.”_

_It stared at the light and the light waited. It stared at the light and the light waited._

_“I remember thinking that when I saw you the next day, all I wanted to do was take your head and smash it right through the wall.”_

_It trembled at the sound of violence in the gruff voice. It stared at the light and the light waited._

_“But then when you showed up, four hours late, looking like you hadn’t slept with three girlie hairpins still stuck in the back of your hair, all I could do was laugh.”_

_Its eyes widened. It liked that sound. That sound was so warm. It looked around, trying to find the source of the voice but still all it could see was the light. It stared at the light and the light waited. Slowly, it reached out to touch it. Almost as if it had been waiting for just that moment, the light floated forward just a little bit, stopping when it pulled its fingers back with a breathy whimper._

_“I knew you didn’t know what I was laughing about when you turned around and started to yell at me. But you had a bright pink bow with small silver bells and when you rounded on me, it jingled softly. You should have seen the look of your face. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life before that point.”_

_It felt itself smile and the orb drifted just the slightest bit closer until finally it touched it. Suddenly, it was standing right in front of its monster._

This monster was younger, hair still just as messy and still the same bright golden yellow. 

“Stop laughing you stupid monster!!”

_It turned around and found itself face to face with its beautiful person. Except it was and it wasn’t. This one had sharper eyes and a fuller smile which was currently twisted into an annoyed rage. All in all, this one felt whole._

“I said stop laughing!!!”

The blonde haired boy if possible laughed harder, clutching his sides as he descended into peals of the uncontrollable sounds. 

“I swear I’m going to stab you in three seconds if you DON’T STOP LAUGHING!!”

The blonde just kept right on cackling much to the distain of its beautiful person. 

_It watched the scene in fascination. There was so much warmth to this and it watched its beautiful person as his eyes softened from anger to exasperation to fondness._

“This is your fault anyways.” 

That caused the blonde on the floor to choke and cough on his continuous laughter, sputtering as he tried to catch his breath. Its beautiful person waited; slumping with an exaggerated sigh into the nearest empty desk. 

“Yes, this is all your fault.”

The blonde who had finally pulled himself together rounded to the front of the desk, lowering his face to mere inches in front of the raven’s face. 

“How the hell is it my fault you stupid flea?” 

“It’s because you wouldn’t stop chasing me that I wound up having to play the punishment game with my sisters.” The raven sighed, running his fingers through the back of his hair, grimacing as he felt them catch against the remaining clips. 

The blonde seemed to be taken aback by this statement as he asked, “you have sisters?”

“Yes Shizu-chan,” the raven sighed again as he began to undo the remaining clips. “I have two sisters. They’re twins in fact.”

The blonde, Shizu-chan, blinked. “Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“You never asked,” the raven shrugged, pulling the last of the clips from his hair. Red eyes narrowed as if looks alone could light the offending objects in his hands on fire. Shizu-chan took one look at them and descended into peals of laughter once more. 

“I swear; of all the ones I couldn’t find it just had to be these three.”

A bright pink bow with small silver bells lay next to a small pair of strawberries. The last one was actually an elegant silver hair pin interlaced with soft pink sakura petals. Izaya seemed to smile at the last one fondly while the blonde stared at the raven. 

“Still don’t see how it’s my fault.” Shizu-chan grumbled, breaking the moment of silence that had hung over the two of them. “You were the one who dumped a bucket full of chalk dust over my head.”

“I wanted to see what my monster would look like as a ghost.”

_It stared in bewilderment in it heard the words "my monster" from its beautiful person. It was even more surprised when it watched the other’s eyes widen just like its own, almost as if they were holding their breath._

“As if you could ever kill me you stupid stinkin’ flea.” The blond snorted, completely oblivious to the other’s involuntary slip of the tongue.

The raven seemed to let out their breath as he fingers the last of the three clips before pocking the other two into his blazer.

“Well either way,” the raven drawled, standing up in the chair so that he was for once taller than the blonde, “I ended up paying for it. It took two hours to get everything out of my hair that night only to wake up with more this morning, some of which had been glued.”

Shizu-chan chortled again. “You sisters are merciless.” Gold eyes locked with the red. “After all they do have you as an example.”

“I’d like to think I’m a good example to follow after.” The raven pressed a hand to his chest in mock hurt. “Besides…”

The raven hopped off the chair and onto the floor before pressing his full front into the blonde who stiffened. Pale, slender hands reached up to place the last clip back into his hair, the sharp silver and pink contrasting boldly with the dark locks. 

“With a monster like you, I think I’ll be the closest thing to a pretty blushing bride you’ll ever see.”

Pulling away and fleeing for the door, the raven watched with satisfaction as the eyebrow twitched and a vein throbbed on the forehead of the blonde. Thirty seconds later, the clip was knocked out of his hair with the blast of wind that was a desk being hurled past his head. 

_With that same blast, it was hurled out of that warm classroom and back into its dark home. Reeling slightly from the adjustment, it looked around in rapid confusion._

_“You know…”_

_It stopped to listen to that gruff voice still continuing. It now knew who that voice was. It knew who that voice was and it wanted to see that voice. Looking around, it realized that it had traveled away from the door to the surface. It had to go back. It wanted to see that person. It had to see that person._

_“I still have the hair clip.”_

_It started to run. It needed to get to that door._

_“I picked it up when I came back to the classroom after throwing you through the second story window of the science lab.”_

_Where? Where was the door? Where was the door?_

_“I kept it. It’s somewhere in my apartment. It’s funny. Kasuka found it once and asked about it. When I mean asked, he just held it and looked at me. I said it was from a long time ago and I thought it was pretty.”_

_It needed to find that door._

_“Then he said something interesting. As I said before, Kasuka had always been the smarter one. When he said it I laughed so hard again I swear I cracked a few ribs.”_

_There!! There it was. It bolted for it. It had to reach it._

_“He said it would be best in dark hair.”_

_Just a little bit more. Please let it reach it._

_“Well, anyways, Celty and them are telling me to head home for the day. Shinra is whining that I’m intruding on their love nest. Now he’s busy getting beaten for it.”_

_No. Please no. Keep going. It was almost there. Keep going please._

_“I’ll come by again tomorrow so just yeah. Make sure not to go anywhere okay. I’m not really in the mood to be hunting down half delusional fleas.”_

_Its hands touched the warmth of the wood and scrabbled to grip the door knob._

_“I’ll see you tomorrow alright. Um…yeah…bye.”_

_It turned it as hard as it could._

_The door still remained locked._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Another chapter!! AND A REALLY LONG ONE AT THAT!!! This chapter literally flowed right out of me. It was such a relief to write. But unfortunately, the next post will not be for at least another two weeks as I have my GRE coming up and me being the procrastinator that I am, am studying now... *runs away from judgement*
> 
> Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and I'm so happy to be back to writing for all of you wonderful readers. Seeing everyone of your comments just keeps me so motivated and puts the biggest smile on my face. 
> 
> Thank you all for your continued support,
> 
> Inumaru Higurashi


	11. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It felt what it felt...

“So, what you all are telling me,” a low rumble snarled into the emptiness of the office space, “is that you left the task that I entrusted the group of you, in the hands of some incompetent traffickers.”  


“Boss we—”  


A pale, veiny hand held itself up in the air, silencing the crowd and causing the speaker to cower backwards like a wounded wolf.  


“The target has not only escaped, but is now unable to be located. The warehouse was thoroughly violated and had it been the police that had done so, our operations would have been discovered and put an end to. So, you tell me how you could possibly have any explanation at all that would even begin to cover all of your disgraceful blunders.”  


The pale hand slammed down onto the arm of the chair and the entire group threw themselves onto their knees as the clicks of guns were heard from the darkened corners all around them.  


“Killing you is merciful. If I would be the truly cruel boss, I would have you all turned into the toys that you had made of our precious associate.”  


Screams echoed off the wall as desperate howls and pleas were cut off. The flashes of light from the rounds of gun fire made the walls a full canvas of beautiful twisting shadows before the blood became too much. When the last twitch of life was wiped from before him, the slim, pale figure reached forward for his cane and stood shakily from his throne above the growing pool of slaughter.  


“You two,” a skeletal finger raised itself and beckoned to the two shadows behind the Gatling guns, recognizable only by the whites of their teeth. One set was on full display as their lips were drawn into a sickening joker smile, tiny chuckles escaping from between the cracks. The other only revealed the top set as they dug harshly into the bottom lip, leaving a small trail of blood running down their chin.  


“I’m sure you both are fairly disgusted by such a shameful waste of life,” the slim figure sighed as he stepped down to the side and began to make his way away from the massacre, to the slowly opening metal door.  


“Yes boss,” the joker cackled, punching its companion resulting in a snarl in response and dangerous flash of teeth.  


“I already sent two of your sibling ahead of you to clean up the mess. I trust that if I were to send you two, I won’t have to bring the four of you back to meet the same fate.”  


“Yes boss,” the biter muttered, voice remaining thoroughly impassive. “We will have mission complete and targets recovered or dead.”  


“Dead,” the boss sighed, taking a deep breath as they stepped outside into the snowy tundra spread out for miles ahead of them. All of the suited personal took a deep bow as the three proceeded to the two waiting vehicles. “We do not need to waste another life after all of the trouble that has brought this old man so much heartache.”  


The joker scoffed while the biter simply held their tongue.  


“Bring it and anything else that stands in your way of getting to it back with you alive. And tell your two siblings that should any of them be killed, then you four will be short a new toy.”  


The biter let go of their lip with a small gasp while the joker howled a laughter into the grey, snowing clouds.  


With a disinterested wave of the pale, veiny hand, the boss entered into his car, closed the door, and drove away. The two remaining figures entered into the second vehicle, driving in the opposite direction as both parties left the bloodbath behind them without so much as a parting glance back. 

0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0  


_It didn’t know how long it stayed, desperately turning the door handle as a fiery sensation built itself up in its…chest. Yes, that area was its chest and whatever was going on in there wanted out._

_But it didn’t know how to let it out. So, it just kept turning the door handle and the feeling just kept growing. Why don’t it open? Why won’t it let it see the monster? Why would it show it something like that and not let it GO SEE THE MONSTER?!_  


_“It’s called a scream.”  
_

_Whirling around, it felt itself slip and crash heavily backwards into the door, one hand still gripping the handle tightly. However, to its surprise, there was no one there. There was no open door and its beautiful person was nowhere in sight. Fear ripped through it, thoroughly quenching whatever feeling had been building inside of its chest before. There was someone else in its home? There was someone else in its HOME?! It ripped itself away from the door and bolted out into the endless darkness.  
_

_It felt tears start their familiar trail down its face as fear and panic consumed it. It had to run. It had to run because there was someone else in its home. It would hurt again. It would break again. This time, it may never see the monster again. But where could it run to? There was never any end to the darkness, and it had no door to go through. Where could it go? _  
__

_Suddenly, it saw the same disembodied light floating off in the darkness. This light had brought it to the monster. This light had let it see and feel a small glimmer of something for even just a little bit. It had to go to the light. Picking up the pace, it used the last of its energy and threw itself bodily at the light, and suddenly it was all consuming. The darkness had vanished and it found itself floundering up high in the air, before crashing down into the…soft grass? _  
__

_Sitting up slowly, it caught breath, slowing down its sniffling and wiping the tears from its eyes. Blinking a few times, it looked around in awe before meeting a set of feet standing in front of it._

 _Letting out a sharp gasp of breath, it scampered backwards away from the other presence before. Curling itself into tight ball, it buried its face into its knees and waited for the beating to come._

_It had been tricked. The light had tricked it and brought it to another person._  


__

_However, the pain never came. Instead came a gruff voice saying in a worried tone, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you.” _  
__

_Confusion course through its being once again but it didn’t want to look up. It didn’t want to hurt. It didn’t want to break. It just wanted to hide. It just wanted to disappear. _  
__

_“I’m so sorry,” the voice continued. “You looked like you needed some help so I just tried to help.” _  
__

_It just wanted to disappear. It just wanted to disappear and go see the monster. _  
__

_“I just wanted to help. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just…” the gruff voice trailed off and suddenly, it felt a large, warm hand settle itself onto its…shoulder. _  
__

_It jerked its head up so fast at the contact that it nearly smacked the other being on the nose with its skull. _  
__

_Bright blonde filled itself vision before it lowered itself eyes and was met with some of the purest pools of blue it had ever seen. It had never seen such a color in its life. This can’t be real. This can’t be real. This can’t be real. _  
__

_Sensing that he had the other’s attention, the other being spoke again, a small smile tugging at their lips. _  
__

_“There you are.” _  
__

_It cocked its head to the side not quite understanding what the other mean. It had been right here. It had never left. If anything, this other person was the one who was in the wrong place.  
_

_“Can you hear me?” _  
__

_It cocked its head to the other side. The blue was so pretty. It wanted to touch it. _  
__

_Slowly, it removed its hand from where it had been hugging its knees and reached forward and gently, poked right into the middle of the pool of blue. _  
__

_“Ow!” The other being wobbled as he removed his hand from its shoulder to cover the now closed pool of blue, the other one still open and watching it swirling with a small amount of pain and annoyance. _  
__

_It felt something come from its chest and this time, it didn’t want to stop it from coming out. This feeling was something it felt like it knew. Opening its mouth, it let out the tiniest of sounds. _  
__

_“hee…” _  
__

_Both blue orbs opened wide this time and stared at it in wonder. And if it thought that things couldn’t get any brighter, that blue seemed to want to blind it as they lit up with the…smile…yes, it was a smile…that crossed the other being’s face. _  
__

_“Hi.” He breathed out, holding out his hand to it. “It’s nice to meet you.” _  
__

_It looked at the hand in front of it with the same tilt to its head. What did this person want it to do with that hand? Suddenly it had an idea. Leaning forward onto its knees, it reached both of its free hand forward and grabbed the…wrist, yes it grabbed the other’s wrist. Swiftly, it drew the hand forward and bit the hand. _  
__

_“OW!” the other being yowled, falling forward at the sudden yank, crashing into it and knocking them both to the ground. _  
__

_There was something on top of it. There was something on top of it. There was something on top of it. In the distance, it could hear a voice calling to it but everything in its body was seized with inconsolable terror. It didn’t even know if it was breathing. There was something on top of it. There was something on top of it. There was something on top of it. _  
__

_The voice was still there trying to say something but couldn’t hear past the roaring in its ears. Slowly, it felt the darkness start to take it back as the light faded. The softness on its back shifted to nothingness and the voice became quieter and quieter. _  
__

_When it finally settled back into its homeland, it found it face to face with the door to the outside just a few feet away. Gathering everything it had left, it gasped in a silent sob and began the long crawl to its destination. Please let it get there. Please just let it get there. It was crying, sobbing, gasping, silent shudders ripping its throat raw, begging to be vocalized. Just let it get there. It just wanted to get there. _  
__

_Finally, finally, finally, it reached up for the handle and turned. _  
__

_Still the handle didn’t turn. _  
__

_Collapsing into a small, shaking heap, it balled together everything that it knew it had left of itself, and wept. All it could think about as it let the last vestiges of what little consciousness remained slip away, was that the blue had been very pretty. Yes, the blue and the yellow, had been…very pretty. It wanted to see it again. It wanted to see it again. It wanted to see it again…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone,
> 
> Thank you so much to the readers who have stuck with this story and are still here. I am sorry for leaving this work for so long. Life has been a whirlwind and it's not always been fun and games. I have been very busy with my school applications and balancing work and the duties of being a wife. Married life has been a roller coaster but I love my husband very much and we are all doing well. Unfortunately, with all of the turbulence, my mind was left with a permanent writer's block. Writing the application essays was like pulling teeth and trying to come up with ideas for this story was asking my brain to commit suicide. I had ideas and scenes but they would not make it onto paper in a satisfying sequence. I will be continuing this work, slowly but surely. I can promise that it will not be another half a year before an update is seen though. Again, I thank you all for those who have commented and urged me to keep writing. Your encouragement raised my spirits and kept me going as I knew I could not abandon such amazing readers.
> 
> Thank you all and I hope to hear all of your feedback and live up to your expectations in the near future. Happy Holidays!
> 
> Yours truly,
> 
> Inumaru Higurashi


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